It was one evening towards the end of the voyage, and about an hour after dinner. A huge form loomed out of the darkness, continuing its steady promenade along the unlit portion of the deck. Pamela, moved by some caprice, abandoned her caution of the last few days and called out. "Mr. Fischer!" He stopped short. The sparks flew from the red end of his cigar, which he tossed into the sea. He hastened towards her. "Miss Van Teyl?" he replied, a little hesitatingly. "How clever of you to know my voice!" she observed. "I am in the humour to talk. Will you sit down, please?" Mr. Fischer humbly drew a chair to her side. "I had an idea," he said, "that you had been avoiding me the last two or three days." "I have," she admitted. "Have I offended you, then?" "Scarcely that," she replied, "only, you see, it seemed waste of time to talk to you with the foils on, and a little dangerous, perhaps, to talk to you with them off." His face reflected his admiration. "Miss Van Teyl," he declared, "you are quite a wonderful person. I have never believed very much in women before. Perhaps that is the reason why I have never married." "Dear me, are you a woman-hater?" she asked. He looked at her steadfastly. "I have made use of women as playthings," he confessed. "Until I met you I never thought of them as companions, as partners." She laughed at him through the darkness, and at the sound of her laugh his eyes glowed. "Really, I am very much flattered," she said. "You give me credit for intelligence, then?" "I give you credit for every gift a woman should have," he answered enthusiastically. "I recognise in you the woman I have sometimes dreamed of." Again she laughed. "Don't tell me, Mr. Fischer," she protested, "that ever in your practical life you have spent a single moment in dreams?" "I have spent many," he assured her, "but they have all been since I knew you." Pamela sighed. "I have never been through a voyage," she observed, "without a love affair. Still, I never suspected you, Mr. Fischer." "You suspected me, perhaps, of other things." She nodded. "I am full of suspicions about you," she admitted. "I am not going to tell you what they are, of course." "There is one thing of which I am guilty," he confessed. "I should like to tell you about it right now." "Could I guess it?" "You're clever enough." "You like me, don't you, Mr. Fischer?" "Better than any woman in the world," he answered promptly. "And my confession is--well, just that. Will you marry me?" Pamela shook her head. "Quite early in life," she confided, "I made up my mind that I would never give a definite answer to any one who proposed to me on a steamer. I suppose it's the wind, or is it the stars, or the silence, or what? I have known the sanest of men, even like you, Mr. Fischer, become quite maudlin."