“I’ll find out in a moment,” said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him.  He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information.  The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland.  The dark man with him was his wife’s brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service.  He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage.  The clergyman’s name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain’s name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them.

“It is of no consequence who they are,” said Magdalen, carelessly.  “The man’s rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment.  Let us have done with him.  I have something else to think of, and so have you.  Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now?  Which way do we go?”

The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm.

Magdalen hesitated before she took it.  Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone’s house.  He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master’s green fan.  Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge’s right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk.

“The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm,” she said, with a bitter laugh.  “Come! let us go on.”

“They are looking this way,” whispered the captain.  “Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?”

“Not to-night,” she answered.  “Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first.”

They passed the garden wall.  Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return.  Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other.  As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness.  “A fine girl, Lecount,” she heard him say.  “You know I am a judge of that sort of thing—­a fine girl!”

As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise.  Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain.

Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass—­the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden.