's no good," said Rosa, eying him mournfully. "You can't deceive me.
You are head over heels, and the kindest thing I can do is to be cruel
to you--for your own sake."

She sprang forward suddenly, and, before the astounded youth could
dodge, dealt him a sharp box on the ear. As he reeled under the blow she
boxed the other.

[Illustration: It's to make you leave off loving me 236]

"It's to make you leave off loving me," she explained; "and if I ever
catch you following me again you'll get some more; besides which I shall
tell your mother."

She picked up her parasol from the trunk, and after standing regarding
him for a moment with an air of offended maidenhood, walked back to the
town. Bassett, after a long interval, returned by another road.

CHAPTER XIX

JOAN HARTLEY returned to Salthaven a week after Captain Trimblett's
departure, and, with a lively sense of her inability to satisfy the
curiosity of her friends, spent most of the time indoors. To evade her
father's inquiries she adopted other measures, and the day after her
return, finding both her knowledge and imagination inadequate to the
task of satisfying him, she first waxed impatient and then tearful.
Finally she said that she was thoroughly tired of the subject, and
expressed a fervent hope that she might hear no more about it. Any
further particulars would be furnished by Captain Trimblett, upon his
return.

"But when I asked him about it he referred me to you," said Hartley.
"The whole affair is most incomprehensible."

"We thought it would be a surprise to you," agreed Joan.

"It was," said her father, gloomily. "But if you are satisfied, I
suppose it is all right."

He returned to the attack next day, but gained little information. Miss
Hartley's ideas concerning the various marriage ceremonies were of the
vaguest, but by the aid of "Whitaker's Almanack" she was enabled to
declare that the marriage had taken place by license at a church in the
district where Trimblett was staying. As a help to identification she
added that the church was built of stone, and that the pew-opener had
a cough. Tiresome questions concerning the marriage certificate were
disposed of by leaving it in the captain's pocket-book. And again she
declared that she was tired of the subject.

"I can't imagine what your aunt was thinking about," said her father.
"If you had let me write--"

"She knew nothing about it," said Joan, hastily; "and if you had
written t