Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/335

Rh 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 or common sense am I here?"

"Because, young man—because, sir, I'm sick o' love for you, an' I want'ee to marry me."