Of Edbury she could not speak for grief, believing that he loved her still and was acting under compulsion.  Her long and faithful attachment to the scapegrace seemed to preserve her from the particular regrets Captain Welsh supposed to occupy her sinner’s mind; so that, after some minutes of the hesitation and strangeness due to our common recollections, she talked of him simply and well—­as befitted her situation, a worldling might say.  But she did not conceal her relief in escaping to this quaint little refuge (she threw a kindly-comical look, not overtoned, at the miniature ships on the mantelpiece, and the picture of Joseph leading Mary with her babe on the ass) from the temptations I could imagine a face like hers would expose her to.  The face was splendid, the figure already overblown.  I breathed some thanks to my father while she and I conversed apart.  The miller was dead, her brother in America.  She had no other safe home than the one Captain Welsh had opened to her.  When I asked her (I had no excuse for it) whether she would consent to go to Edbury again, she reddened and burst into tears.  I cursed my brutality.  ‘Let her cry,’ said Captain Welsh on parting with us at his street door.  ‘Tears are the way of women and their comfort.’

To our astonishment he told us he intended to take her for a voyage in the Priscilla.  ‘Why?’ we asked.

‘I take her,’ he said, ’because not to do things wholly is worse than not to do things at all, for it ’s waste of time and cause for a chorus below, down in hell, my young friends.  The woman is beautiful as Solomon’s bride.  She is weak as water.  And the man is wicked.  He has written to her a letter.  He would have her reserved for himself, a wedded man:  such he is, or is soon to be.  I am searching, and she is not deceitful; and I am a poor man again and must go the voyage.  I wrestled with her, and by grace I conquered her to come with me of a free will, and be out of his snares.  Aboard I do not fear him, and she shall know the mercy of the Lord on high seas.’

We grimaced a little on her behalf, but had nothing to reply.

Seeing Janet after Mabel was strange.  In the latter one could perceive the palpably suitable mate for Edbury.

I felt that my darling was insulted—­no amends for it I had to keep silent and mark the remorseless preparations going forward.  Not so Heriot.  He had come over from the camp in Ireland on leave at this juncture.  His talk of women still suggested the hawk with the downy feathers of the last little plucked bird sticking to his beak; but his appreciation of Janet and some kindness for me made him a vehement opponent of her resolve.  He took licence of his friendship to lay every incident before her, to complete his persuasions.  She resisted his attacks, as I knew she would, obstinately, and replied to his entreaties with counter-supplications that he should urge me to accept old Riversley.  The conflicts went on