“Oh, certainly,” replied Edna.  “Any spare moment will suit me.”

When he had gone, Edna Markham sat down on the rock again.  With her hands clasped in her lap, she gazed at the sand at her feet.

“Without a minute to think of it,” she said to herself, presently,—­“without any consideration at all.  And now it is done!  It was not like me.  I do not know myself.  But yes!” she exclaimed, speaking so that any one near might have heard her, “I do know myself.  I said it because I was afraid, if I did not say it then, I should never be able to say it.”

If Captain Horn could have seen her then, a misty light, which no man can mistake, shining in her eyes as she gazed out over everything into nothing, he might not have been able to confine his proposition to a strictly business basis.

She sat a little longer, and then she hurried away to finish the work on which she had been engaged; but when Mrs. Cliff came to look for her, she did not find her packing provisions for the captain’s cruise, but sitting alone in one of the inner caves.

“What, crying!” exclaimed Mrs. Cliff.  “Now, let me tell you, my dear child, I do not feel in the least like crying.  The captain has told me that everything is all right between you, and the more I think of it, the more firmly I believe that it is the grandest thing that could have happened.  For some reason or other, and I am sure I cannot tell you why, I do not believe at all that the captain is going to be shipwrecked in that little boat.  Before this I felt sure we should never see him again, but now I haven’t a doubt that he will get somewhere all right, and that he will come back all right, and if he does it will be a grand match.  Why, Edna child, if Captain Horn never gets away with a stick of that gold, it will be a most excellent match.  Now, I believe in my heart,” she continued, sitting down by Edna, “that when you accepted Captain Horn you expected him to come back.  Tell me isn’t that true?”

At that instant Miss Markham gave a little start.  “Mrs. Cliff,” she exclaimed, “there is Ralph calling me.  Won’t you go and tell him all about it?  Hurry, before he comes in here.”

When Ralph Markham heard what had happened while he was down at the beach, he grew so furiously angry that he could not find words in which to express himself.

“That Captain Horn,” he cried, when speech came to him, “is the most despotic tyrant on the face of the earth!  He tells people what they are to do, and they simply go and do it.  The next thing he will do is to tell you to adopt me as a son.  Marry Edna!  My sister!  And I not know it!  And she, just because he asks her, must go and marry him.  Well, that is just like a woman.”

With savage strides he was about marching back to the beach, when Mrs. Cliff stopped him.

“Now, don’t make everybody unhappy, Ralph,” she said, “but just listen to me.  I want to tell you all about this matter.”