I am bound to say the young man took his dismissal with grace.  He halted then and there and raised his hat; stood for a moment pondering; and, turning on his heel, walked quickly off towards Porthlooe.

It must have been a week before I learnt casually that he had obtained employment there as secretary to a small company owning the Lord Nelson and the Hand-in-hand privateers.  His success, as you know, was rapid; and naturally in a gossiping parish I heard about it—­a little here, a little there—­in all a great deal.  He had bought the Providence schooner; he had acted as freighter for Minards’ men in their last run with the Morning Star; he had slipped over to Cork and brought home a Porthlooe prize illegally detained there; he was in London, fighting a salvage case in the Admiralty Court; . . .  Within twelve months he was accountant of every trading company in Porthlooe, and agent for receiving the moneys due to the Guernsey merchants.  In 1809, as you know, he opened his bank and issued notes of his own.  And a year later he acquired two of the best farms in the parish, Tresawl and Killifreeth, and held the fee simple of the harbour and quays.

During the first two years of his prosperity I saw little of the man.  We passed each other from time to time in the street of Porthlooe, and he accosted me with a politeness to which, though distrusting him, I felt bound to respond.  But he never offered conversation, and our next interview was wholly of my seeking.

One evening towards the close of his second year at Porthlooe, and about the date of his purchase of the Providence schooner, I happened to be walking homewards from a visit to a sick parishioner, when at Cove Bottom, by the miller’s footbridge, I passed two figures—­a man and a woman standing there and conversing in the dusk.  I could not help recognising them; and halfway up the hill I came to a sudden resolution and turned back.

“Mr. Laquedem,” said I, approaching them, “I put it to you, as a man of education and decent feeling, is this quite honourable?”

“I believe, sir,” he answered courteously enough, “I can convince you that it is.  But clearly this is neither the time nor the place.”

“You must excuse me,” I went on, “but I have known Julia since she was a child.”

To this he made an extraordinary answer.  “No longer?” he asked; and added, with a change of tone, “Had you not forbidden me the vicarage, sir, I might have something to say to you.”

“If it concern the girl’s spiritual welfare—­or yours—­I shall be happy to hear it.”

“In that case,” said he, “I will do myself the pleasure of calling upon you—­shall we say to-morrow evening?”

He was as good as his word.  At nine o’clock next evening—­about the hour of his former visit—­Frances ushered him into my parlour.  The similarity of circumstance may have suggested to me to draw the comparison; at any rate I observed then for the first time that rapid ageing of his features which afterwards became a matter of common remark.  The face was no longer that of the young man who had entered my parlour two years before; already some streaks of grey showed in his black locks, and he seemed even to move wearily.