She shook her head sadly.

“My Christopher will never say a harsh word to me.  All the worse for me.  He will quietly abandon a creature so inferior to him.”

“Stuff!”

Now, she was always running to the window, in hope that Christopher would call on his uncle, and that she might see him; and one day she gave a scream so eloquent, Philip knew what it meant.  “Get you behind that screen, you and your boy,” said he, “and be as still as mice.  Stop! give me that letter the scoundrel forged, and the ring.”

This was hardly done, and Rosa out of sight, and trembling from head to foot, when Christopher was announced.  Philip received him very affectionately, but wasted no time.

“Been to Kent Villa yet?”

“No,” was the grim reply.

“Why not?”

“Because I have sworn never to say an angry word to her again; and, if I was to go there, I should say a good many angry ones.  Oh, when I think that her folly drove me to sea, to do my best for her, and that I was nearer death for that woman than ever man was, and lost my reason for her, and went through toil and privations, hunger, exile, mainly for her, and then to find the banns cried in open church, with that scoundrel!—­say no more, uncle.  I shall never reproach her, and never forgive her.”

“She was deceived.”

“I don’t doubt that; but nobody has a right to be so great a fool as all that.”

“It was not her folly, but her innocence, that was imposed on.  You a philosopher, and not know that wisdom itself is sometimes imposed on, and deceived by cunning folly!  Have you forgotten your Milton?—­

     “’At Wisdom’s gate, Suspicion sleeps,
     And deems no ill where no ill seems.’

“Come, come! are you sure you are not a little to blame?  Did you write home the moment you found you were not dead?”

Christopher colored high.

“Evidently not,” said the keen old man.  “Ah, my fine fellow! have I found the flaw in your own armor?”

“I did wrong, but it was for her.  I sinned for her.  I could not bear her to be without money, and I knew the insurance—­I sinned for her.  She has sinned against me.”

“And she had much better have sinned against God, hadn’t she?  He is more forgiving than we perfect creatures that cheat insurance companies.  And so, my fine fellow, you hid the truth from her for two or three months.”

No answer.

“Strike off those two or three months; would the banns have ever been cried?”

“Well, uncle,” said Christopher, hard pressed, “I am glad she has got a champion; and I hope you will always keep your eye on her.”

“I mean to.”

“Good-morning.”

“No; don’t be in a hurry.  I have something else to say, not so provoking.  Do you know the arts by which she was made to believe you wished her to marry again?”

“I wished her to marry again!  Are you mad, uncle?”