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“Do you mean to say,” he asked, “that you don’t take cold, wearing no wrap or bonnet on frosty nights like this?”

She let the tiller go for a moment, took his hand by the wrist, and laid it on her own bare arm. He felt the flesh, but it was firm and warm. Then he withdrew his hand hastily, without finding anything to say. His eyes avoided hers. When, after half a minute, he looked at her again, her gaze was fixed straight ahead, upon the misty stretch of sea beyond the harbour’s mouth.

In a minute or two they were gliding out between the tall cliff and the reef of rocks that guard this entrance on either side. On the reef stood a wooden cross, painted white, warning vessels to give a wide berth; on the cliff a grey castle, with a battery before it, under the guns of which they spun seaward, still with the wind astern.

Outside, the sea lay as smooth as within the harbour. The wind blew steadily off the shore, so that, close-hauled, one might fetch up or down Channel with equal ease. The girl began to flatten the sails, and asked her companion to bear a hand. Their hands met over a rope, and the man noted with surprise that the girl’s was feverishly hot. Then she brought the boat’s nose round to the eastward and, heeling gently over the dark water, they began to skirt the misty coast with the breeze on their left cheeks.

“How much farther?” asked the minister.

She nodded towards the first point in the direction of Plymouth. He turned his coat-collar up about his ears and wondered if his duty would often take him on such journeys as this. Also he felt thankful that the sea was smooth. He might, or might not, be given to sea-sickness: but somehow he was sincerely glad that he had not to be put to the test for the first time in this girl’s presence.

They passed the small headland and still the boat held on its way.

“I had no idea you were going to take me this distance. Didn’t you promise me the house lay just beyond the point we’ve just passed?”

To his amazement the girl drew herself up, looked him straight in the face and said–

“There’s no such place.”

“What?”

“There’s no such place. There’s nobody ill at all. I told you a lie.”

“You told me a lie–then why in the name of common sense am I here?”

“Because, young man–because, sir, I’m sick o’ love for you, an’ I want’ee to marry me.”

“Great heaven!” the young minister muttered, recoiling. “Is the girl mad?”

“Ah, but look at me, sir!” She seemed to grow still taller as she stood there, resting one hand on the tiller and gazing at him with perfectly serious eyes. “Look at me well before you take up with some other o’ the girls. To-morrow they’ll be all after ‘ee, an’ this’ll be my only chance; for my father’s no better’n a plain fisherman, an’ they’re all above me in money an’ rank. I be but a Ruan girl, an’ my family is naught. But look at me well; there’s none stronger nor comelier, nor that’ll love thee so dear!”

The young man gasped. “Set me ashore at once!” he commanded, stamping his foot.

“Nay, that I will not till thou promise, an’ that’s flat. Dear lad, listen–an’ consent, consent–an’ I swear to thee thou’ll never be sorry for’t.”

“I never heard such awful impropriety in my life. Turn back; I order you to steer back to the harbour at once!”

She shook her head. “No, lad; I won’t. An’ what’s more, you don’t know how to handle a boat, an’ couldn’t get back by yoursel’, not in a month.”

“This is stark madness. You–you abandoned woman, how long do you mean to keep me here?”