“Egad, if our luck holds, we’ll be sailing before the week is out.”

But he looked troubled.  He hemmed and hawed, and finally broke out into Scotch: 

“Indeed, laddie, y’ell no be leaving Miss Dorothy for me.”

“What nonsense has Comyn put into your head?” I demanded, with a stitch in my side; I am no more to Miss Manners than—­”

“Than John Paul!  Faith, y’ell not make me believe that.  Ah, Richard,” said he, “ye’re a sly dog.  You and I have been as thick these twa months as men can well live, and never a word out of you of the most sublime creature that walks.  I have seen women in many countries, lad, beauties to set thoughts afire and swords a-play,—­and ’tis not her beauty alone.  She hath a spirit for a queen to covet, and air and carriage, too.”

This eloquent harangue left me purple.

“I grant it all, captain.  She has but to choose her title and estate.”

“Ay, and I have a notion which she’ll be choosing.”

“The knowledge is worth a thousand pounds at the least,” I replied.  “I will lend you the sum, and warrant no lack of takers.”

“Now the devil fly off with such temperament!  And I had half the encouragement she has given you, I would cast anchor on the spot, and they might hang and quarter me to move me.  But I know you well,” he exclaimed, his manner changing, “you are making this great sacrifice on my account.  And I will not be a drag on your pleasures, Richard, or stand in the way of your prospects.”

“Captain Paul,” I said, sitting down beside him, “have I deserved this from you?  Have I shown a desire to desert you now that my fortunes have changed?  I have said that you shall taste of our cheer at Carvel Hall, and have looked forward this long while to the time when I shall take you to my grandfather and say:  ’Mr. Carvel, this is he whose courage and charity have restored you to me, and me to you.’  And he will have changed mightily if you do not have the best in Maryland.  Should you wish to continue on the sea, you shall have the Belle of the Wye, launched last year.  ’Tis time Captain Elliott took to his pension.”

The captain sighed, and a gleam I did not understand came into his dark eyes.

“I would that God had given me your character and your heart, Richard,” he said, “in place of this striving thing I have within me.  But ’tis written that a leopard cannot change his spots.”

“The passage shall be booked this day,” I said.

That morning was an eventful one.  Comyn arrived first, dressed in a suit of mauve French cloth that set off his fine figure to great advantage.  He regarded me keenly as he entered, as if to discover whether I had changed my mind over night.  And I saw he was not in the best of tempers.

“And when do you sail?” he cried.  “I have no doubt you have sent out already to get passage.”

“I have been trying to persuade Mr. Carvel to remain in London, my Lord,” said the captain.  “I tell him he is leaving his best interests behind him.”