a sense of self-sacrifice,
resolved to accept the situation.

"Yes; Rosa had to be told," he said, philosophically. "Fate again; you
can't avoid it."

Hartley took a turn or two up and down the path.

"The news came on me like a--like a thunderbolt," he said, pausing in
front of the captain. "I hadn't the slightest idea of such a thing, and
if I say what I think--"

"Don't!" interrupted the captain, warmly. "What's the good?"

"When were you married?" inquired the other. "Where were you married?"

"Joan made all the arrangements," said the captain, rising hastily. "Ask
her."

"But--" said the astonished Hartley.

"Ask her," repeated the captain, walking toward the house and flinging
the words over his shoulder. "I'm sick of it."

He led the way into the dining-room and, at the other's invitation, took
a seat at the breakfast-table, and sat wondering darkly how he was to
get through the two days before he sailed. Hartley, ill at ease, poured
him out a cup of coffee and called his attention to the bacon-dish.

"I can't help thinking," he said, as the captain helped himself and
then pushed the dish toward him--"I can't help thinking that there is
something behind all this; that there is some reason for it that I don't
quite understand."

The captain started. "Never mind," he said, with gruff kindness.

"But I do mind," persisted the other. "I have got an idea that it has
been done for the benefit--if you can call it that--of a third person."

The captain eyed him with benevolent concern. "Nonsense," he said,
uneasily. "Nothing of the kind. We never thought of you."

"I wasn't thinking of myself," said Hartley, staring; "but I know that
Joan was uneasy about you, although she pretended to laugh at it. I
feel sure in my own mind that she has done this to save you from Mrs.
Chinnery. If it hadn't--"

He stopped suddenly as the captain, uttering a strange gasping
noise, rose and stood over him. For a second or two the captain stood
struggling for speech, then, stepping back with a suddenness that
overturned his chair, he grabbed his cap from the sideboard and dashed
out of the house. The amazed Mr. Hartley ran to the window and, with
some uneasiness, saw his old friend pelting along at the rate of a good
five miles an hour.

Breathing somewhat rapidly from his exertions, the captain moderated his
pace after the first hundred yards, and went on his way in a state of
mind pretty evenly divided between wrath