“It is Richard!” I heard her cry.  “He has come at last.”

I gripped the rope tightly, sprang to the deck, and faced her as she came out of the group, her lips parted, and the red of her cheeks vying with the hood she wore.  I took her hand silently.

“I had given you over, Richard,” she said, her eyes looking reproachfully into mine.  “Another ten minutes, and I should not have seen you.”

Indeed, the topsails were already off the caps, the captain on deck, and the men gathered at the capstan.

“Have you not enough to wish you good-by, Dolly?” I asked.

“There must be a score of them,” said my lady, making a face.  “But I wish to talk to you.”

Mr. Marmaduke, however, had no notion of allowing a gathering in his daughter’s honour to be broken up.  It had been wickedly said of him, when the news of his coming departure got around, that he feared Dorothy would fall in love with some provincial beau before he could get her within reach of a title.  When he observed me talking to her, he hurried away from the friends come to see his wife (he had none himself), and seizing me by the arm implored me to take good care of my dear grandfather, and to write them occasionally of the state of his health, and likewise how I fared.

“I think Dorothy will miss you more than any of them, Richard,” said he.  “Will you not, my dear?”

But she was gone.  I, too, left him without ceremony, to speak to Mrs. Manners, who was standing apart, looking shoreward.  She started when I spoke, and I saw that tears were in her eyes.

“Are you coming back soon, Mrs. Manners?” I asked.

“Oh, Richard!  I don’t know,” she answered, with a little choke in her voice.  “I hope it will be no longer than a year, for we are leaving all we hold dear for a very doubtful pleasure.”

She bade me write to them, as Mr. Marmaduke had, only she was sincere.  Then the mate came, with his hand to his cap, respectfully to inform visitors that the anchor was up and down.  Albeit my spirits were low, ’twas no small entertainment to watch the doctor and his rivals at their adieus.  Courtenay had at his command an hundred subterfuges to outwit his fellows, and so manoeuvred that he was the last of them over the side.  As for me, luckily, I was not worth a thought.  But as the doctor leaned over her hand, I vowed in my heart that if Dorothy was to be gained only in such a way I would not stoop to it.  And in my heart I doubted it.  I heard Dr. Courtenay hint, looking meaningly at her cloak, that some of his flowers would not have appeared amiss there.

“Why, doctor,” says my lady aloud, with a side glance at me, “the wisdom of Solomon might not choose out of twenty baskets.”

And this was all the thanks he got for near a boat-load of roses!  When at length the impatient mate had hurried him off, Dolly turned to me.  It was not in me to say more than: