‘Hush,’ cried Maggie, looking round her nervously. ‘Don’t speak so loud. It’s all over now. It _has_ been ever since. I thought him good and true at that time, but when I found out what a villain he was (and much worse to others than he’d been to me), my love turned to hate, and I could have killed him--except for others.’ ‘And who are the others?’ ‘I can’t tell you. ’Tisn’t my secret. It’s theirs. But you know all now. And that’s the reason I can’t be your wife. You wouldn’t have asked me if you’d known.’ ‘Does Miss Douglas know your secret, Maggie?’ ‘No, no,’ cried the girl excitedly, ‘and don’t you never hint it to her, or I’ll kill you. Oh, my dear, sweet mistress! I’ve tried sometimes to make her understand, but I haven’t dared tell her the truth. I should die if I saw her sweet eyes look angry at me. Oh, promise me, Mr Farrell, on your sacred honour, that you’ll never let her guess I’ve been so wicked. For I’m her only comfort. There’s no one else to love and care for her, and if she made me leave her, she’d be all alone. And she’s in such dreadful trouble you can’t think. If it’s wrong to stay by her--so pure and good as she is--I can’t help it, for I’d lay down my life for her sake.’ She turned her face, all blurred and swollen with her tears, towards him, as she spoke, and he bent down and kissed it tenderly. ‘Poor child! I will carry your secret for ever in the depths of my heart. And now, answer my question--Will you be my wife?’ ‘Lor’! Mr Farrell, you can’t have listened to a word I said.’ ‘I heard you perfectly, and I understand you have been wronged and betrayed by a villain. So have I! and I am the worst of the two. We have each yielded to the temptation that assailed us. We are equally guilty, and I believe equally penitent. We have no right to reproach each other. If your past is as entirely buried as mine, Maggie, let us try to console each other in the future.’ ‘Oh, sir! you are too good to me! I don’t deserve it. I didn’t think any honest man would ever think of me now.’ ‘You must call me “_Will_,” Maggie.’ ‘When I’m accustomed to the idea a bit, I may. But I can’t believe it’s true.’ ‘It rests with you to make it so.’ ‘_To be your wife!_’ said Maggie musingly--‘to be your lawful, married wife, and have a home of my own in New Zealand. Oh, Mr Farrell,’ she continued suddenly, as the conviction burst upon her, ‘I shall never _never_ forget your goodness to the last hour of my life, and I’ll be as true as steel to you, if only in gratitude for what you’ve said to-day.’ [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER II. IN THE DOLDRUMS. Aided by the steady trades, the _Pandora_ crept up to the line, and in little more than a month from her date of sailing she crossed that invisible goal, and fell in with a dead calm in the horse latitudes.