"'But me no buts,' my lovely white sea-bird. Nothing can alter the fact that you are my own little wife." "Yes, I know," said Valmai, "but if you love me as much as you say you do, grant me one request, Cardo." "A hundred, dearest; what is it?" "Well, we have had to be deceitful and secret--more so than I have ever been in my life. We could not help it; but now, here, let us be open. Give me leave to tell my uncle the truth." "Valmai! he will write at once to his brother, and the news will reach my father, and it will break his heart to find I have deceived him. No, let me be the first to tell him. I shall have no hesitation in doing so when I return this time next year." "But, Cardo, dear old Uncle John is quite a different sort of man to my Uncle Essec or to your father. I know he would never, never divulge our secret; he is kindness itself, and would, I know, feel for us. And it would be such a comfort to me to know that we had been open and above-board where it was possible to be so. Cardo, say yes." "Yes, yes, yes, dearest, I know, I feel you are right, so tell him the whole truth. Oh, how proud I should be to tell the whole world were it possible, and how proud I _shall_ be when I return, to publish abroad my happiness. But until then, Valmai, you will keep to your promise of perfect secrecy? for I would not for all the world that my father should hear of my marriage from any lips but my own. You promise, dearest?" "Cardo, I promise," and Valmai looked pensively into the fire. "A year is a long time," she said, "but it will come to an end some time." "Don't call it a year. I don't see why I should not be back in eight or nine months." The kettle sang and the bright fire gleamed, the old captain snored upstairs, and thus began for Valmai and Cardo that fortnight of blissful happiness, which bore for both of them afterwards such bitter fruits; for upon overhauling the _Burrawalla_ it was discovered that she had sustained more injury than was at first suspected, and the two or three days' delay predicted by Captain Owen were lengthened out to a full fortnight, much to the captain's chagrin and the unspeakable happiness of Cardo and Valmai. Next day at eleven A.M. Captain Powell was lying in state, not with the trappings of mourning around him, but decked out in a brilliant scarlet dressing-gown, a yellow silk handkerchief bound round his head for a night-cap. Jim Harris had just shaved him, and as he left the room had said: "There, capting, the Prince of Wales couldn't look no better." Valmai flitted about, putting the finishing touches to her uncle's gorgeous toilet. "Do Ay look all raight, may dear?" "Oh, splendid, uncle, only I would like you better in your plain white night shirt and my little gray shawl pinned over you."