From every one of the pictures which passed across my mind her face seemed to look out, the narrow pencilled eyebrows above the clear grey eyes, the great tenderness of her mouth.... Within a few hours, I pondered sadly, I had found my love and lost her just as I had found and lost the treasure....
A voice was hailing us out of the gloom that hung over the opalescent sea.
The sound of oars came to me and presently a ship's boat emerged from the night, a white figure in the stern. A few minutes later Marjorie Garth, wrapped in a white blanket coat, stepped out of the boat that rocked in the swell at the foot of the _Cristobal's_ companion and mounted to the deck.
"You would have left me like this?" she said, and stood close by my side.
"It was not a friendly thing to do.... partner," she added in a breathless sort of way.
"Oh!" she cried in a low voice, "I was ashamed of him. After what you risked to save me. But you must make allowances. I am all he has, you know. He'll be all right in a day or two. We're going back to Panama and home by way of America. And I've come to fetch you back to the _Naomi_!...."
"If I ask you to come. And I'll make Daddy apologise, if you like...."
"Don't let us quarrel," I pleaded. "Let me keep a wonderful dream unspoiled, Marjorie. But dreams can't last for ever, my dear. One has to wake up some time, you know!"
"Even if Sir Alexander had not told me I was not wanted on the _Naomi_," I continued, "I think I should yet have parted from you here. My dear, my dear, don't you see it's hopeless? I care far too much for you to be able to know you merely as a friend. I must make an end of it. The barrier between us is insurmountable...."
"Money! You're too rich, Marjorie, for me to ask you the question which, almost from the moment I first saw you in the smoke-room of the _Naomi_, I have wanted to put to you. I make enough out of this odd trade of mine to keep a wife. But as long as I'm in the Secret Service I'd ask no woman to marry me. It wouldn't be playing the game by her--or by the service, either!...."
She listened to me in silence. Then she said quite simply:
"Desmond, if you'll ask me, I'll be your wife. I've never met a man I'd marry before; but I'd marry you. Why should you let money stand between us? I shall have enough for both...."