whom, who she
says is her lover."

"Is it possible?"

"Go and see for yourself;" and as his wife hurried past him up the
stairs, he added in the same dismal tone--"Who shall we get to look
after the house now? we shall never have another like her;" and he
sighed profoundly.

When Madam Garvloit appeared at the door, Elizabeth finished her
interrupted explanation.

"I have known him ever since I was a little girl," she said.

It was at once evident to her mistress that there must be a romantic
story here; but though brimming over with curiosity, she deferred her
questions until a more convenient season. In the meantime she manifested
the most lively sympathy; and after winning Salve's heart by telling him
what a treasure Elizabeth had been to her, she begged that as long as he
remained in Amsterdam he would come in and out of the house as he
pleased.

CHAPTER XX.

When Madam Garvloit had made some excuse next morning to leave the two
alone together in her sitting-room, Salve took out of his pocket a small
parcel, and opening it deliberately, said, with a certain solemnity--

"Five years ago, Elizabeth, when I was in Boston, I bought these rings."
He took them out of the paper, and laid them in her hand. "I have had a
good deal to bear since, but you see I have kept them all along
notwithstanding."

She threw her arms round his neck, hid her face upon his breast, and he
could feel that she was crying. She tried them on then, both on the same
finger, and holding up the hand to show him, said--

"That is the first ring I ever possessed."

A shadow passed across his face, and it flushed slightly; and she only
then perceived what connection of ideas her remark might have suggested.

He had three days to spare before he was obliged to be back at
Puermurende on board the old brig of which he was now master, and with
which, patched and leaky though she was, after his sailor's pride had
been overcome, he had grown to be well satisfied enough--more
particularly, perhaps, because she was his own. The happiness of these
days was not marred by a single further incident to remind him of the
past; and it was only on the day that he was to leave that the foul
fiend Distrust was again awakened in his unlucky heart.

It was a Sunday, and after the morning service there was to be a sort of
popular _fete_ in Amsterdam. At the famous town-hall, where, in
Holland's great days, when De Ruyter's and Van Tromp's guns wer