Through the open port-hole there came to her the swish of water, and she heard the throb and roar of the engines like the sound of a distant train in a tunnel. Moved by a deep impulse that came straight from her soul, she took the hand that lay upon her brow and drew it downwards first to her lips, holding it there with closed eyes while she kissed it, then softly to her heart while she turned her eyes to his. "Oh, Dick," she said, "are you sure--are you quite sure--that--that--I am worth keeping?" "I am quite sure I am going to keep you," he answered very steadily. Her two hands closed fast upon his. "Not--not as a prisoner?" she whispered, wanly smiling. "Yes, a prisoner," he said, not without a certain grimness, "that is, until you have learnt your lesson." "What lesson?" she asked him wonderingly. "That you can't do without me," he said, a note of challenge in his voice. Something in his look hurt her. She freed one hand and laid it pleadingly, caressingly, against his neck. "Oh, Dicky," she said, "try to understand!" His face changed a little, and she thought his mouth quivered ever so slightly as he said. "It's now or never, Juliet. If I don't come to a perfect understanding with you to-night, we shall be strangers for the rest of our lives." She shivered at the finality of his words, but they gave her light. "I have hurt you--horribly!" she said. He was silent. She pressed herself to him with a sudden passionate gesture. "Dick--my husband--will you forgive me--can you forgive me--before you understand?" Her eyes implored him, yet just for a second he hesitated. Then very swiftly he gathered her closely, closely against his heart, and kissed her pleading, upturned face over and over. "Yes!" he said. "Yes!" She clung to him with all her quivering strength. "I love you, darling! I love you,--only--only--you!" she whispered brokenly. "You believe that?" "Yes," he said again between his kisses. "And if I tried to do without you it was only because--only because--I loved you so," she faltered on. "Your anger is just--the end of the world for me, Dick. I can't face it. It tears my very self." "My darling! My own love!" he said. "And then--and then--I had such an awful doubt of you, Dicky. I thought your love was dead, and I thought--and I thought I couldn't hope to hold you--after that. I'd got to free you somehow. Oh, Dicky, what agony love can be!" "Hush, darling, hush!" he said.