the strain of waiting would have been worse than the reaction from letting go.
Dane had run the launch into a lagoon at one end of the big swamp opposite Dargaville and they sat on the floor at the stern with their arms about each other. They had been working together all day sternly repressing all signs of their feeling for each other. And after three long days she was very tired. He was determined to relax and rest her, but his first words after they settled had results strangely remote from his intention.
“I wish the darned thing were over,” he grumbled. “How soon afterwards can you get away and marry me?”
He felt her stiffen against him. She withdrew her arm, turned a little and stared at him.
“Why, Dane—you don’t have to ask me to do that!”
There was enough of a young moon for them to see the startled questioning on each other’s faces.
“Have to!” he repeated. “My dear girl, what do you mean by that remark?”
“Do you mean that you have meant marriage—all along?” She did not know why his look made her flush to the roots of her hair, but it did.
“I say, my child,” he said very quietly, “I want to know why you have assumed I meant anything else.”
“I—I don’t know,” she said helplessly.
“Oh, I know. You did take some notice of gossip after all, didn’t you?”
She drew a deep breath. She was speechless.
“You haven’t thought of marrying me?” he went on, in the same quiet way.
“No.”
“I’m very sorry.” Something about the crushed way
