"
He hesitated as he answered her. She instantly guessed the truth.
"Is it about your ship?"
He little knew how she had been thinking in her absence from him of the
business which he believed that he had concealed from her. He little
knew that she had learned already to be jealous of his ship. "Do they
want you to return to your old life?" she went on. "Do they want you to
go back to the sea? Must you say Yes or No at once?"
"At once."
"If I had not come in when I did would you have said Yes?"
She unconsciously laid her hand on his arm, forgetting all inferior
considerations in her breathless anxiety to hear his next words. The
confession of his love was within a hair-breadth of escaping him; but
he checked the utterance of it even yet. "I don't care for myself," he
thought; "but how can I be certain of not distressing _her?_"
"Would you have said Yes?" she repeated.
"I was doubting," he answered--"I was doubting between Yes and No."
Her hand tightened on his arm; a sudden trembling seized her in every
limb, she could bear it no longer. All her heart went out to him in her
next words:
"Were you doubting _for my sake?"_
"Yes," he said.
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