I consented, and then we stood at the window, looking at the scene of the river from the docks, talking about Will and the sea-life and such matters until dinner was ready. I longed to hear him say that he loved me. The language of his eye was not satisfying enough. I wanted him to take my hand and ask me to be his wife. I had thought my appetite good until I sat down, and then I could not eat. My heart beat fast. I felt my colour come and go. I was alone with the man that I loved. I seemed to have lost my self-control, and behaved like a shy school-girl, and there were moments when I could have wished my aunt had not left us. The waiter was slow, and it was nearly three o’clock before we rose. Captain Butler went to the window, looked out, and said to me: ‘I am afraid this fine day is not going to last. There’s a thickness gathering upon the river, and the sun looks like the rising moon. The afternoons are still short. Shall we hold Greenwich Park over for another day?’ ‘If you like.’ ‘How amiable you are! You give me my way in everything.’ ‘What shall we do?’ ‘Stop here for a little while, if you don’t mind. We have this room to ourselves for the present.’ He took me by the hand. I trembled and sat down, and he seated himself beside me. Am I to repeat what he said--in what words he told me how great his love was for me--in what terms he asked me to be his wife? All this I could unfold, ancient as it is in my memory. I could give it to you as though it were of yesterday’s happening. But the black curtain still remains down on the memorable, the horrible, the tragical scene it is to rise upon soon, and I must not linger over such recollections as I am now dictating to my friend. It was quite in keeping that I, a sailor’s daughter, should be wooed and asked in marriage by a sailor in scenes full of shipping, within hearing of the cries and choruses of seamen and the hundred noises of the busy docks. A red mist lay upon the river, and the sun hung pale and rayless, like a great lemon, in the west. We were occupying a room that might have been the coffee-room. Several tables were draped and ready for guests, but we had been alone when my uncle and aunt left us, and we remained alone. He held me to him and kissed me; he looked proudly and gratefully at me and said that he loved me from the moment he had set eyes on me; that he thought me the handsomest woman he had ever seen in his life; that he adored me for my spirit--much more to this effect he said. But he told me he never would have had the heart to offer for my hand if he had not found some encouragement in my looks. Then he went over the long talk he’d had about me with Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone. ‘They begged,’ said he, ‘if you accepted me that we should not be married until my return from my next voyage.’ ‘They are dear to me,’ said I, looking at him, ‘but they are not my guardians, and have no control over me.’