‘Mind, Captain,’ said Louis,’ it wasn’t I that made the boat late this time last year.’

’Well!  I might be wrong, I fancied you cast an eye that way.  Then maybe it ain’t true what’s all over the place here.’

Louis pressed to hear what.  ’Why, that when the French were going on like Robert Spear and them old times, he had convoyed the young lady right through the midst of them, and they would both have been shot, if my Lady’s butler hadn’t come down with a revolver, killed half-a-dozen of the mob, and rescued them out of it, but that Lord Fitzjocelyn had been desperately wounded in going back to fetch her bracelet, and Mr. Delaford had carried him out in his arms.’

‘Well!’ said Louis, coolly, without altering a muscle of his face, as the Captain looked for an angry negative.

’And when they got home,—­so the story went,—­Mr. Frost, the tutor, was so mad with jealousy and rage, that my Lady declared those moorings would not suit her no longer, but had let go, and laid her head right for Beauchastel.’

‘Pray what was the young lady supposed to think of the matter?’

’Stories appeared to vary.  One version said that Mr. Delaford had found him on his knees to her; and that my Lady had snatched her cruelly away, because she would not have her married before her own daughters, and looked over all the post, for fear there should be a letter for her.  Another declared that Miss Conway would not have him at any price, and was set upon the poor tutor, and that he was lying dangerously ill of a low fever. —­The women will have it so,’ observed the Captain, ’the story’s everywhere, except maybe in the parlour at Beauchastel, and I wouldn’t wonder if Mrs. Mansell knew it all herself, for her maid has a tongue a yard long.  I won’t say but I thought there might be some grain of truth at the bottom—­’

‘And you shall hear it by-and-by, when I know what it is myself.’

’I’d not say I would have believed it the more if that fine gentleman had taken his oath of it—­a fellow that ain’t to be trusted,’ observed the Captain.

This might have led to a revelation, if Louis had had time to attend to it; but he had pity on James’s impatient misery, and proceeded to ask the loan of the boat.  The tide would not, however, serve; and as waiting till it would was not to be endured, the two cousins set off to walk together through the woods, Louis beguiling the way by chaffing James, as far as he would bear, with the idea of Isabel’s name being trifled with by the profane crowd.

He left James at the gate of the park, prowling about like a panther to try for a glimpse of Isabel’s window, and feeding his despair and jealousy that Louis should boldly walk up to the door, while he, with so much better a right, was excluded by his unguarded promise to Lady Conway.

All the tumultuary emotions of his mind were endlessly repeated, and many a slow and pealing note of the church-clock had added fuel to his impatience, and spurred him to rush up to the door and claim his rights, before Louis came bounding past the lodge-gates, flourishing his cap, and crying, ‘Hurrah, Jem!  All right!’