“He ruined my childhood,” said Ralph hotly, “and must I now stand calmly by while he ruins the rest of my life? Evereld!”--there was a passionate appeal in his voice which stirred the very depths of her heart, “I have no right yet to ask you to be my wife--my career is only beginning--but my darling, I love you--I love you!” He saw her flush and tremble, but she was quite silent. Her words about a girl always being able to stop that sort of thing if she chose came back to his mind. “Are you angry with me?” he said pleadingly. “I meant to have waited for years before speaking, but I was carried away.” She lifted her blue eyes to his, they were bright and dewy, and in her face there seemed to be the glow of sunrise. “I am glad you didn’t wait, Ralph,” she said softly. Whereupon Ralph had the audacity to kiss her in the full light of day as they sat under the shelter of the boat; and no one was any the wiser save an old fisherman who was blest with exceptionally long eyesight; he, with a smile, fell to thinking of his own young days, and softly sang as he filled his Sunday pipe the refrain of a sailor’s song: “Polly, my Polly, She is so jolly, The bonniest lass in the world!” The two were silently but rapturously happy, and it was some little time before any thought of other people came to trouble Ralph. As for Evereld her heart seemed to beat to the rhythm of his words, “I love you!” and she was not at all disposed to consider the question which soon formed itself in his mind. “I wonder whether I was wrong to speak,” he said. “You must remember darling that you are free, altogether free. After all, you have seen nothing of the world. You are not to let the thought of my love bind you.” “Perhaps I ought not to make a promise while I am Sir Matthew’s ward,” said Evereld. “That is the only thing which would make me wish to wait; and now that we understand each other the waiting ought not to be too hard.” “Suppose you tell Mrs. Hereford just the whole truth,” said Ralph, “and see what she advises. I shall feel happier about it if you have someone to turn to, and if she is what she seems to be one could trust her with anything. I wish I could talk to her some day.” “Well that can easily be managed,” said Evereld. “I will tell her to-night. I am sure you are right about that. Though Sir Matthew is untrustworthy we can trust her, and as I am under her care here it seems right somehow that she should know.” “She will certainly think me the most presumptuous fellow she ever met,” said Ralph. “Looking at it from an outsider’s point of view it is as bad as it can be. A fellow who is not quite one and twenty, and only earning three pounds a week! Mrs. Hereford will call me ‘The first of the Fortune Hunters,’ and will warn you against me.” “We shall see,” said Evereld laughing. “I shall be very much disappointed in her if she doesn’t understand you better.”