Hugh and Grace again stole away for a few moments of seclusion on deck. They found chairs and sat down, neither very talkative.
"Oh, Hugh, just think where we are," she murmured at last. "Thousands of miles from home, and no one the wiser save ourselves. Chicago is on the other side of the world."
"I am glad. But isn't it awful to consider how far we are from everybody we know? We might just as well be dead, Hugh." She was very solemn and wide-eyed.
"I am afraid you are losing heart," he said disconsolately.
"Why, Hugh Ridgeway--Ridge, I mean,--how can I afford to lose heart now? Don't ever say that to me again."
"Yes; we are a long way from home, dear," mused he after a while.
"How far are we from Manila?" she asked suddenly.
"A million miles, judging by the way time goes. We'll be there in twenty days, the captain says."
"What do you suppose Mr. Veath will say when he hears of our marriage?" This question was propounded after a longer interval of silence than usual.
"Why should we care what Mr. Veath says? If he doesn't approve, let him go to--" but Hugh checked his fiery speech as abruptly as he began it.
"He will be awfully shocked to learn how we have deceived him," she went on, as if he had not spoken.
"Yes, I care," she cried. "I shall be very sorry if he loses the good opinion he may have formed. He is the kind of a man who would not understand such an affair as this."
"But, then, we are not obliged to tell him. We can get married and leave Manila at once without ever seeing him again. After that we will be Mr. and Mrs. Ridgeway, and he could never find the people known as Hugh Ridge and sister."
"That would be a shameless way to treat him. He has been so true, so good, Hugh," she cried reproachfully. For quite a while their eyes lingered upon the dark water without seeing it, their thoughts centred upon the fast approaching end of their relationship with Henry Veath.
"I wish he could be told," murmured she, her voice far away.
"I couldn't do it to save my soul. What would he say?" There was an awed anxiety in his voice.
"I don't care what other people say, but I do care what he says. He seems so honest, so far above tricks of this kind."
"What's one man's opinion, anyhow, especially when he's to be buried in Manila for years?"