“You are mistaken,” she said, quietly.  “You are a perfect stranger to me.”

“Pardon me,” replied the captain; “I am a species of relation.  I had the pleasure of seeing you in the spring of the present year.  I presented myself on that memorable occasion to an honored preceptress in your late father’s family.  Permit me, under equally agreeable circumstances, to present myself to you.  My name is Wragge.”

By this time he had recovered complete possession of his own impudence; his party-colored eyes twinkled cheerfully, and he accompanied his modest announcement of himself with a dancing-master’s bow.

Magdalen frowned, and drew back a step.  The captain was not a man to be daunted by a cold reception.  He tucked his umbrella under his arm and jocosely spelled his name for her further enlightenment.  “W, R, A, double G, E—­Wragge,” said the captain, ticking off the letters persuasively on his fingers.

“I remember your name,” said Magdalen.  “Excuse me for leaving you abruptly.  I have an engagement.”

She tried to pass him and walk on northward toward the railway.  He instantly met the attempt by raising both hands, and displaying a pair of darned black gloves outspread in polite protest.

“Not that way,” he said; “not that way, Miss Vanstone, I beg and entreat!”

“Why not?” she asked haughtily.

“Because,” answered the captain, “that is the way which leads to Mr. Huxtable’s.”

In the ungovernable astonishment of hearing his reply she suddenly bent forward, and for the first time looked him close in the face.  He sustained her suspicious scrutiny with every appearance of feeling highly gratified by it.  “H, U, X—­Hux,” said the captain, playfully turning to the old joke:  “T, A—­ta, Huxta; B, L, E—­ble; Huxtable.”

“What do you know about Mr. Huxtable?” she asked.  “What do you mean by mentioning him to me?”

The captain’s curly lip took a new twist upward.  He immediately replied, to the best practical purpose, by producing the handbill from his pocket.

“There is just light enough left,” he said, “for young (and lovely) eyes to read by.  Before I enter upon the personal statement which your flattering inquiry claims from me, pray bestow a moment’s attention on this Document.”

She took the handbill from him.  By the last gleam of twilight she read the lines which set a price on her recovery—­which published the description of her in pitiless print, like the description of a strayed dog.  No tender consideration had prepared her for the shock, no kind word softened it to her when it came.  The vagabond, whose cunning eyes watched her eagerly while she read, knew no more that the handbill which he had stolen had only been prepared in anticipation of the worst, and was only to be publicly used in the event of all more considerate means of tracing her being tried in vain—­than she knew it.  The bill dropped from her hand; her face flushed deeply.  She turned away from Captain Wragge, as if all idea of his existence had passed out of her mind.