'I wonder if he was ever in love with you?' Bampfyld said, while remembering, as she spoke, how once, in those delicious days when they had first acknowledged their own love for one another, she had jokingly told him that he was not the first sailor who had tried to woo her. And he recalled, too, the fact that Charke had been introduced to her mother's house by her uncle, and had been more or less of a frequent visitor there. 'Was he, Bella?' he continued. 'Was he the sailor you once told me of who wanted your love?' 'Yes,' she said, gazing up at him with her clear, truthful eyes. 'He was. He told me so long after I met you. And I believe now--I have thought so for some time--that he would never have applied for the position he holds in this ship if uncle hadn't told him that I was coming in it. He was far too ambitious for such a post when I first knew him, and aspired to be captain in one of the great liners, and eventually to be an owner.' 'I'm glad you've told me, darling. Especially as it quite explains his not liking me over much. Poor chap! I can understand that he should not do so in the circumstances,' he added, while gazing down on his sweetheart with such a glowing look of love as to cause her to forget all their unfortunate surroundings and revel only in her delight at being so much beloved by him. 'Yet,' Gilbert continued, 'I can't understand his wanting to come into this ship, even though it would give him three or four months more of your society. Such a thing as that would have been maddening to ordinary men--I know it would have been to me! If you had rejected me--I--I--well, there! I can't say what I should have done; but, at any rate, I couldn't have borne the torture of being in your presence--especially if you were on your way to marry another fellow.' 'He is a strange man,' Bella said, 'and although I never loved him, I cannot help admiring his force of character. His father, a selfish old man, treated him badly and baulked him of going into your service, yet he managed to be a sailor in another way, and to enforce respect from every one. And he is a cultivated man and wonderfully well read. Still, I don't altogether like his force of character, or rather, the direction it takes. He told me, on that day at Portsmouth, that he never faltered in his purpose, and that, when once he had made up his mind to do a thing or get a thing, he did it, or got it, somehow. I believe, too, that he meant it as a kind of defiance to me.' 'Did he, though!' exclaimed Gilbert, as now they sat beneath the awning, at which they had arrived while talking. 'Did he! Well, he won't get you, anyway, will he? Not while I'm alive, anyhow. If, however, I were to die----'