voluble.
The light went out in his tobacco pipe, and a hectic spot appeared
in either thin and sallow cheek. Mainwaring sat wondering to hear the
severely peaceful Quaker preacher defending so notoriously bloody and
cruel a cutthroat pirate as Capt. Jack Scarfield. The warm and innocent
surroundings, the old brick house looking down upon them, the odor
of apple blossoms and the hum of bees seemed to make it all the more
incongruous. And still the elderly Quaker skipper talked on and on with
hardly an interruption, till the warm sun slanted to the west and the
day began to decline.

That evening Mainwaring stayed to tea and when he parted from Lucinda
Fairbanks it was after nightfall, with a clear, round moon shining in
the milky sky and a radiance pallid and unreal enveloping the old house,
the blooming apple trees, the sloping lawn and the shining river beyond.
He implored his sweetheart to let him tell her uncle and aunt of their
acknowledged love and to ask the old man's consent to it, but she would
not permit him to do so. They were so happy as they were. Who knew but
what her uncle might forbid their fondness? Would he not wait a little
longer? Maybe it would all come right after a while. She was so fond, so
tender, so tearful at the nearness of their parting that he had not
the heart to insist. At the same time it was with a feeling almost of
despair that he realized that he must now be gone--maybe for the space
of two years--without in all that time possessing the right to call her
his before the world.

When he bade farewell to the older people it was with a choking feeling
of bitter disappointment. He yet felt the pressure of her cheek against
his shoulder, the touch of soft and velvet lips to his own. But what
were such clandestine endearments compared to what might, perchance, be
his--the right of calling her his own when he was far away and upon the
distant sea? And, besides, he felt like a coward who had shirked his
duty.

But he was very much in love. The next morning appeared in a drizzle of
rain that followed the beautiful warmth of the day before. He had the
coach all to himself, and in the damp and leathery solitude he drew out
the little oval picture from beneath his shirt frill and looked long and
fixedly with a fond and foolish joy at the innocent face, the blue eyes,
the red, smiling lips depicted upon the satinlike, ivory surface.

II

For the better part of five months Mainwaring cruised