A little later the boat was running eastward round the headland at the river's mouth before a gently favouring breeze. The wind being steady and the sea smooth, the boatman was left behind, Violet taking the helm and Leslie minding the sheet. Aunt Sarah, settled comfortably forward of the little stick of a mast, spent the first five minutes in a careful scrutiny of the sky, and then, finding that there were no outward evidences that she was to be drowned that morning, suddenly astounded her shipmates with the exclamation-- "You two are in love with each other, and you can't deny it!" There succeeded ten seconds of intense silence, and then Violet, who was familiar with her aged relative's little ways, laughed at the consternation on her lover's bronzed face. "It is no use, Leslie," she said. "Aunt Sarah is a witch, and knows the secrets of our inmost hearts. We may as well confess." "I don't suppose it is a crime," Chermside murmured weakly, in his confusion taking an unnecessary pull at the sheet and sending a spray over Aunt Sarah's mantle. "No, young man, it's not a crime," she snapped when she had recovered her balance and her equanimity. "I'm a bit of a character reader, and I don't think you're capable of crime--havn't got the backbone for it. But I know that you are weak, and that you're in some sort of a hobble that you ought to be pulled out of. Now just you be straight with me. If you had really been the man of the means you've been credited with in this gossipy little hole you'd have gone to my nephew Montague Maynard and asked him for his daughter three days ago, eh?" "I admit that. There have been misunderstandings for which I am partly but not entirely responsible," said Leslie, marvelling at the almost uncanny insight with which the old lady had read between the lines, and wondering how much of his secret she had guessed. She proceeded to cross-examine him after the fashion of a barrister handling a hostile witness. "Leaving aside for the moment the question of financial position," she continued, "is there any other cause or impediment why you should not be joined in holy matrimony to my great-niece? As a man of honour you will answer me truly and without reserve." Leslie stole a glance at Violet and saw that she had become suddenly grave. Nurtured in the midst of luxury, she hardly knew the value of money, and had the most profound contempt for it; but she cherished the highest ideals of what a man's moral worth should be, and she was clearly awaiting his answer with eager interest. "Yes," said Leslie, scarcely hesitating, "there is the strongest possible reason why Violet should not marry me. I have already urged it upon her--that I am utterly unworthy." "He is not so black as he would paint himself, Aunt Sarah," the girl pleaded. "Some quixotic idea----"