“No.  I was so busy thinking that I forgot.  There’s plenty of time.  I’ll tell you what.  Let us go back to the boat and get your things, and then you can get cleaned up and—­change—­” she added hesitatingly, for he was still wearing the suit in which he had fallen on the jetty at Melbourne.  It was splashed with mud and rain; it had been obviously slept in, and smelled of tobacco and spilled whisky.

“Right.  We’ll have a cab and then we can talk on the way,” he said.  “By the way, I haven’t a penny in the world.  Broke to the wide!  What did your uncle give you?”

“Fifty pounds.”

“Lord!  What a decent sort of uncle to have about.  I haven’t a relative who’d let me raise a fiver.  Well, you’d better lend me some, old girl, till I get mine through.”

“You can have it all if you like,” she said quickly.  “I don’t want it if I’m with you.”  She was thinking that he had told her not to let him have money; but if they were to be together all the time there could be no possible danger, and something told her that it would be good for him to be trusted with all her worldly goods.

In the cab, as soon as it started its two-mile crawl, she handed it to him solemnly.  He seemed to make an effort to pull himself together as he put the money into his notecase.

“I say, Marcella,” he jerked out, “you’ll not let me out of your sight, will you, darling?  It’s no end risky, with all this money.”

“Poor little boy,” she whispered softly.  “You couldn’t be naughty to-day, could you?  Besides, you’ve me to look after now, as well as yourself.  You’ve been here before.  I’ve never been away from home in my life.”

He caught at her hand and held it tightly.

“I’m just dying to kiss you, darling,” he whispered.  “Oh, I wish we needn’t waste time on that bally rotten ship.  I want us to get away from everywhere.”

On the ship they found that he could not get his things until the purser came aboard at seven o’clock in the evening, as he had them sealed up.  But Knollys provided him with clothes brush and toilet apparatus while Marcella waited.

“I’ve found out all about getting married,” he explained when they got outside on the quay again.  “It’s frightfully simple.  Knollys has just told me where the Registrar’s place is.  Lord!  Marcella, do you feel frightened?”

“No,” she said, rather faintly.

“It’s worse for me than for you, after all.  It’s fun for a girl to get married.  But I’ve all the ordeals to go through, facing the Registrar, buying the ring—­”

“Well, I’ll do it,” she said resignedly, “if you’re frightened.”

But as they passed the first jeweller’s shop he dived in suddenly without speaking to her.  After a few minutes he emerged, his face flushed and damp, his hand shaky.

“Look here, come up a side way somewhere, old thing!  They’ve given me a chunk of cardboard with little holes in it.  You’ve got to poke your finger in till you see which fits.  Lord, I’m glad you don’t get married more than once in a lifetime.”