“You little know,” he replied, “under what interested motives I have acted.  When I established myself in this hotel, I was fairly driven out of my yacht by a guest who went sailing with me.”

Mrs. Presty became deeply interested.  “Dear me, what did he do?”

Captain Bennydeck answered gravely:  “He snored.”

Catherine was amused; Mrs. Presty burst out laughing; the Captain’s dry humor asserted itself as quaintly as ever.  “This is no laughing matter,” he resumed, looking at Catherine.  “My vessel is a small one.  For two nights the awful music of my friend’s nose kept me sleepless.  When I woke him, and said, ‘Don’t snore,’ he apologized in the sweetest manner, and began again.  On the third day I anchored in the bay here, determined to get a night’s rest on shore.  A dispute about the price of these rooms offered them to me.  I sent a note of apology on board—­and slept peacefully.  The next morning, my sailing master informed me that there had been what he called ‘a little swell in the night.’  He reported the sounds made by my friend on this occasion to have been the awful sounds of seasickness.  ’The gentleman left the yacht, sir, the first thing this morning,’ he said; ’and he’s gone home by railway.’  On the day when you happened to arrive, my cabin was my own again; and I can honestly thank you for relieving me of my rooms.  Do you make a long stay, Mrs. Norman?”

Catherine answered that they were going to London by the next train.  Seeing Randal’s card still unnoticed on the table, she handed it to the Captain.

“Is Mr. Linley an old friend of yours?” he asked, as he took the card.

Mrs. Presty hastened to answer in the affirmative for her daughter.  It was plain that Randal had discreetly abstained from mentioning his true connection with them.  Would he preserve the same silence if the Captain spoke of his visit to Mrs. Norman, when he and his friend met next?  Mrs. Presty’s mind might have been at ease on that subject, if she had known how to appreciate Randal’s character and Randal’s motives.  The same keen sense of the family disgrace, which had led him to conceal from Captain Bennydeck his brother’s illicit relations with Sydney Westerfield, had compelled him to keep secret his former association, as brother-in-law, with the divorced wife.  Her change of name had hitherto protected her from discovery by the Captain, and would in all probability continue to protect her in the future.  The good Bennydeck had been enjoying himself at sea when the Divorce was granted, and when the newspapers reported the proceedings.  He rarely went to his club, and he never associated with persons of either sex to whom gossip and scandal are as the breath of their lives.  Ignorant of these circumstances, and remembering what had happened on that day, Mrs. Presty looked at him with some anxiety on her daughter’s account, while he was reading the message on Randal’s card.  There was little to see.  His fine face expressed a quiet sorrow, and he sighed as he put the card back in his pocket.