Nell of Shorne Mills

"I know that," he blurted out. "If I thought you would have done so--but

I knew you wouldn't. And so I've got a grievance to meet yours. After

all, you might have let me give you some trifle----"

"Such as a diamond bracelet, worth perhaps a hundred pounds?"

"To remember me by. After all, it's only natural I should want to leave

something behind me to remind you of me."

"We shan't need such gifts to--to remind us," she said simply. "I think

we had better luff."

The sail swung over as she put the helm down; there was silence for a

moment or two, then he said: "I'm sorry I've offended you, Miss Nell. Perhaps it was beastly bad

taste. I see it now. But just put yourself in my place----" He slid over

the thwart in his eagerness, and coiled himself at her feet. "Supposing

you had broken your confounded arm--I beg your pardon!--your arm, and

had been taken in and tended by good Samaritans, and nursed and treated

like a prince for weeks, and had been made to feel happier than you've

been for--for oh, years, would you like to go away with just a 'Oh,

thanks; awfully obliged; very kind of you'? Wouldn't you want to make a

more solid acknowledgment? Come, be fair and just--if a woman can be

fair and just!--and admit that I'm not such a criminal, after all!"

She looked down at him thoughtfully, then turned her eyes seaward again.

"What do you want me to say?" she asked.

"Oh, well; I see that you won't change your mind about these things, so

perhaps I'd better be content if you'll say: 'I forgive you.'"

A smile flitted across her face as she looked down at him again, but it

was rather a sad little smile.

"I--I forgive you!" she said.

He raised his cap, and took her hand, and, before she suspected what he

was going to do, he put his lips to it.

Her face grew crimson, then pale almost to whiteness. It was the first

time a man's lips had touched her virgin hand, and----A tremor ran

through her, her eyes grew misty, as she looked at him with a

half-pained, half-fearful expression. Then she turned her head away, and

so quickly that he saw neither the change of color nor the expression in

her eyes.

"I feel like a miscreant who had received an unexpected pardon," he said

lightly, and yet with a touch of gravity in his voice, "and, like the

miscreant, I at once proceed to take advantage of the lenity of my

judge."