The tears started in her eyes.

“For shame to say that,” she whispered.  “Lord knows I don’t want to turn back from anything that includes you, Don.  But my father and grandpa will be furious.  They won’t hesitate to vent their temper on you if you oppose them.  They are accustomed to respect.  To have their authority flouted rouses them to fury.  And they’re three to one.  Put away your gun, Donald.  If we can’t outsail the Gull I shall have to go back without a struggle.  There will be another time.  They can’t change my heart.”

“They can break your spirit though—­and they will, for this,” he muttered.

But he laid the rifle down on the locker.  The girl snuggled her hand into his.

“You will not quarrel with them, Donald—­please, no matter what they say?  Promise me that,” she pleaded.  “If we can’t outrun them, if they come alongside, you will not fight?  I shall go back obediently.  You can send word to me by Andrew Murdock.  Next time we shall not fail.”

“There will be no next time, Bessie,” he said slowly.  “You will never get another chance.  I know the Gowers and Mortons better than you do, for all you’re one of them.  They’ll make you wish you had never been born, that you’d never seen me.  I’d rather fight it out now.  Isn’t our own happiness worth a blow or two?”

“I can’t bear to think what might happen if you defied them out here on this lonely sea,” she shuddered.  “You must promise me, Donald.”

“I promise, then,” he said with a sigh.  “Only I know it’s the end of our dream, my dear.  And I’m disappointed, too.  I thought you had a stouter heart, that wouldn’t quail before two angry old men—­and a jealous young one.  You can see, I suppose, that Horace is there, too.

“Damn them!” he broke out passionately after a minute’s silence.  “It’s a free country, and you and I are not children.  They chase us as if we were pirates.  For two pins I’d give them a pirate’s welcome.  I tell you, Bessie, my promise to be meek and mild is not worth much if they take a high hand with me.  I can take their measure, all three of them.”

“But you must not,” the girl insisted.  “You’ve promised.  We can’t help ourselves by violence.  It would break my heart.”

“They’ll do that fast enough, once they get you home,” he answered gloomily.

The girl’s lips quivered.  She sat looking back at the cutter half a cable astern.  The westerly had failed them.  The spreading canvas of the yacht was already blanketing the little sloop, stealing what little wind filled her sail.  And as the sloop’s way slackened the other slid down upon her, a purl of water at her forefoot, her wide mainsail bellying out in a snowy curve.

There were three men in her.  The helmsman was a patriarch, his head showing white, a full white beard descending from his chin, a fierce-visaged, vigorous old man.  Near him stood a man of middle age, a ruddy-faced man in whose dark blue eyes a flame burned as he eyed the two in the sloop.  The third was younger still,—­a short, sturdy fellow in flannels, tending the mainsheet with a frowning glance.