The commander coloured, and looked viciously at the captain, but made no reply; in fact, he had no reply to make; for Captain Jackman, in probing and prowling about and asking questions, had got to hear that Fortt, who was a retired dairyman and a good-looking man with strong whiskers, had married Conway's sister, and was living with her in a handsome villa. The commander was not, by this marriage, to be driven from his guns. He stuck to his home, but he never approached the Fortts' house, nor had a word or a look for his sister and her man if he met them. On the other hand, Miss Conway regularly visited her uncle and aunt, and occasionally made excursions with them to a considerable distance, such as Canterbury and London. At this instant she entered. She leapt in a graceful bound from the bottom step of the short flight into the room, giving her body as many swings, though always of a stately sort, as you would expect to see in some lively princess on her entrance. 'Why, Captain Jackman!' she cried with well-assumed amazement at his presence, as if she had not watched him coming, as if she had not seen him turn the corner to ring the hall bell, as if she had not heard, at the head of the short staircase, the loud conversation that had followed on his admission. 'This, our sailors here would say, is a sight for sore eyes. We are bears in a cage to you; and you do not love bears.' 'I have come, madam,' said Captain Jackman, 'to speak to the commander on a subject which must needs be of deep interest to us both.' 'What is it?' she cried, beginning to heave her breast, and looking at her father. 'Captain Jackman's called to ask for your hand in marriage,' said the commander. 'Well?' said the girl. 'I cannot give my consent.' 'Why not? Captain Jackman is a man of as good degree as you. He is a gentleman to the very heels of him, don't you know. I love him; and you _must_ consent!' 'There is a mystery,' said Commander Conway, clasping his gouty hands upon his portly waistcoat, 'that troubles me, and excites dislike. What was he doing in the Devil's Walk?' 'Curiosity, sir. I have answered that. Curiosity took me there.' 'It is not satisfactory to me that the captain should have been dismissed his ship for having been innocently robbed of fifteen hundred pounds.' 'I would advise you to say no more in respect of that,' said the captain, stepping so as to confront Commander Conway. 'I am a man to force you to apologise for your infamous insinuation by carrying you to London, and compelling you to face the owners themselves.'