He led her away, with rather a pale face, to the most secluded part of it.

“What did the captain say?” she asked.

“The captain is a canny, suspicious, pigheaded old Scottish-man!”

“Of course, of course,” very despondingly, “no one can do anything for me.  I must go to a lodging, and advertise for another situation.”

“They will want a recommendation from your last place.”

“Well, I can get it from Canada.”

“And that will take a month.  Bluebell, listen to me; for there’s no time to beat about the bush.  I love you, my sweet child; but that you know already.  Will you marry me?  Don’t start.  I know it is sudden, but it will be all easy.  Directly we land we can drive to a register office; they will ask no questions, but marry us right off, and we can have it done over again in a church, if you like.”

Bluebell began to wonder how many more sensational minutes this hour was to contain.

“Mr. Dutton,” she gasped, in a horrified tone, “what are you saying?  You must know it is impossible.”

“Summon all your moral courage, Bluebell.  You were not afraid in the storm.  Why do you shrink from acting a little out of the common?”

This speech was so like what Bertie would have said, that it nearly brought the tears to her eyes.

“Pray say no more,” said she, shrinking away from him.  “How could I ever dream of such a thing!”

“Can’t you care for me, Bluebell—­ever so little?” pleaded Harry Dutton.

“But that would be so very much!”

Her strange wooer grew more eager, for the moments were passing, and Bluebell was at her wit’s end, when the skipper came rolling up to them.  The delight and relief with which his proposal of taking her home was received was far from pleasing to Mr. Dutton, and Bluebell, in her lightened heart, felt some self-reproach at the sight of his gloomy countenance.

The captain was hurrying her away, but she lingered a moment, and, with one of those speaking glances he had learnt to look for and love, put out her hand to the young sailor.

“Stay with me,” he whispered; “it is not yet too late.”  She shook her head, “I believe you hate me!” he muttered, savagely.

“No,” said Bluebell, impulsively saying more than she felt.  “I like you only too well—­but not enough for that.”

“Any more last words?” said the skipper, who had stood aside good-humouredly, master of the situation.

“I have nothing further to say,” said the young man, stiffly, making way for her to pass.

A minute more, and she was rowing to shore in the captain’s boat, who then put her into a cab to drive to his home.

Now, the good skipper, such an autocrat on board his vessel, was by no means so under his own roof-tree, and sundry misgivings obtruded themselves as to the welcome he might receive from the wife of his bosom when a comely young lady was to be included in it.