‘It couldn’t have been Philip,’ said Sylvia, dubiously.

’But it was.  The captain says so; and he’s not a man to be mistaken.  I thought I’d got his letter with me; and I would have read you a part of it, but I left it at Mrs. Dawson’s in my desk; and I can’t send it to you,’ blushing as she remembered certain passages in which ‘the captain’ wrote very much like a lover, ’or else I would.  But you may be quite sure it was your husband that ventured into all that danger to save his old friend’s life, or the captain would not have said so.’

‘But they weren’t—­they weren’t—­not to call great friends.’

’I wish I’d got the letter here; I can’t think how I could be so stupid; I think I can almost remember the very words, though—­I’ve read them over so often.  He says, “Just as I gave up all hope, I saw one Philip Hepburn, a man whom I had known at Monkshaven, and whom I had some reason to remember well”—­(I’m sure he says so—­“remember well"), “he saw me too, and came at the risk of his life to where I lay.  I fully expected he would be shot down; and I shut my eyes not to see the end of my last chance.  The shot rained about him, and I think he was hit; but he took me up and carried me under cover.”  I’m sure he says that, I’ve read it over so often; and he goes on and says how he hunted for Mr. Hepburn all through the ships, as soon as ever he could; but he could hear nothing of him, either alive or dead.  Don’t go so white, for pity’s sake!’ said she, suddenly startled by Sylvia’s blanching colour.  ’You see, because he couldn’t find him alive is no reason for giving him up as dead; because his name wasn’t to be found on any of the ships’ books; so the captain thinks he must have been known by a different name to his real one.  Only he says he should like to have seen him to have thanked him; and he says he would give a deal to know what has become of him; and as I was staying two days at Mrs. Dawson’s, I told them I must come over to Monkshaven, if only for five minutes, just to hear if your good husband was come home, and to shake his hands, that helped to save my own dear captain.’

‘I don’t think it could have been Philip,’ reiterated Sylvia.

‘Why not?’ asked her visitor; ’you say you don’t know where he is; why mightn’t he have been there where the captain says he was?’

‘But he wasn’t a sailor, nor yet a soldier.’

’Oh! but he was.  I think somewhere the captain calls him a marine; that’s neither one nor the other, but a little of both.  He’ll be coming home some day soon; and then you’ll see!’

Alice Rose came in at this minute, and Mrs. Kinraid jumped to the conclusion that she was Sylvia’s mother, and in her overflowing gratitude and friendliness to all the family of him who had ’saved the captain’ she went forward, and shook the old woman’s hand in that pleasant confiding way that wins all hearts.

‘Here’s your daughter, ma’am!’ said she to the half-astonished, half-pleased Alice.  ’I’m Mrs. Kinraid, the wife of the captain that used to be in these parts, and I’m come to bring her news of her husband, and she don’t half believe me, though it’s all to his credit, I’m sure.’