g to fear; that for an hour past some
one had been patrolling the side-walk before the house; and I bade
her go downstairs and desire him to fetch a surgeon. You were that
sentinel."

Again he bent his head. "I was serving on board the _Lively_," he
said, "in the ferry-way between you and Charlestown. I had heard of
you--that you had taken lodgings in Boston, and that the temper of
the mob might be uncertain. So that night I got leave ashore, on the
chance of being useful. I brought the doctor, if you remember."

"But would not present yourself to claim our thanks." She looked at
him shrewdly. "To-day--did you know that I was in Bath?" she asked.

He owned, "Yes; he had read of her arrival in the _Gazette_, among
the fashionable announcements." He did not add, but she divined,
that he had waited for her by the Abbey, well guessing that her steps
would piously lead her thither and soon. She changed the subject in
some haste.

"Your mother lives in Bath?"

"She has lived here all her life."

"Sir Oliver spent his last days here. I am sorry that I had not her
acquaintance to cheer me."

"It was unlikely that you should meet. We live in the humblest of
ways."

"Nevertheless it would be kind of you to make us acquainted.
Indeed," she went on, "I very earnestly desire it, having a great
need--since you are so hard to thank directly--to thank you through
somebody for many things, and especially for helping Dicky."

He laughed grimly as he fell into step with her, or tried to--but his
obstinate stride would not be corrected. "All the powers that ever
were," he said, "could not hinder Dicky. He has his captaincy in
sight--at his age!--and will be flying the blue before he reaches
forty. Mark my words."

On their way up the ascent of Lansdowne Hill he told her much
concerning Dicky--not of his success in the service, which she knew
already, but of the service's inner opinion of him, which set her
blood tingling. She glanced sideways once or twice at the strong,
awkward man who, outpaced by the stripling, could rejoice in his
promotion without one twinge of jealousy, loving him merely as one
good sailor should love another. She noted him as once or twice he
tried to correct his pace by hers. Her thoughts went back to the
tablet in the Abbey, commemorating a husband who (if it told truth)
had never been hers. She compared him, all in charity, with two who
had given her an unpaid devotion. One slept