“It is you for capsizing in a calm,” remarked David, with some surprise, and went his way.

“Well, Eve, have you thought?”

“Yes, David, I was a little hasty; that puppy would provoke a saint.  After all there is no harm done; they can’t hurt us much now.  It is not here the game will be played out.  Now tell me, when does your ship sail?”

“It wants just five weeks to a day.”

“Does she take up her passengers at ——­ as usual?”

“Yes, Eve, yes.”

“And Mrs. Bazalgette lives within a mile or two of ——.  You have a good excuse for accepting her invitation.  Stay your last week in her house.  There will be no Talboys to come between you.  Do all a man can do to win her in that week.”

“I will.”

“And if she says ‘No,’ be man enough to tear her out of your heart.”

“I can’t tear her out of my heart, but I will win her.  I must win her.  I can’t live without her.  A month to wait!”

Mr. Talboys.  “Well, sir, what do you say now?”

Mr. Fountain (hypocritically).  “I say that your sagacity was superior to mine; forgive me if I have brought you into a mortifying collision.  To be defeated by a merchant sailor!” He paused to see the effect of his poisoned shaft.

Talboys.  “But I am not defeated.  I will not be defeated.  It is no longer a personal question.  For your sake, for her sake, I must save her from a degrading connection.  I will accompany you to Mrs. Bazalgette’s.  When shall we go?”

“Well, not immediately; it would look so odd.  The old one would smell a rat directly.  Suppose we say in a month’s time.”

“Very well; I shall have a clear stage.”

“Yes, and I shall then use all my influence with her.  Hitherto I have used none.”

“Thank you.  Mr. Dodd cannot penetrate there, I conclude.”

“Of course not.”

“Then she will be Mrs. Talboys.”

“Of course she will.”

Lucy sighed a little over David’s ardent, despairing passion, and his pale and drawn face.  Her woman’s instinct enabled her to comprehend in part a passion she was at this period of her life incapable of feeling, and she pitied him.  He was the first of her admirers she had ever pitied.  She sighed a little, then fretted a little, then reproached herself vaguely.  “I must have been guilty of some imprudence—­given some encouragement.  Have I failed in womanly reserve, or is it all his fault?  He is a sailor.  Sailors are like nobody else.  He is so simple-minded.  He sees, no doubt, that he is my superior in all sterling qualities, and that makes him forget the social distance between him and me.  And yet why suspect him of audacity?  Poor fellow, he had not the courage to say anything to me, after all.  No; he will go to sea, and forget his folly before he comes back.”  Then she had a gust of egotism.  It was nice to be loved ardently and by a hero, even though that hero was not a gentleman of distinction,