‘With you, no. But we could wander about. We should not be tied to one spot. I would take you to Algiers--Morocco. We could ride over that strange land together--and when we had used up the Old World we would be off to the New. I would take you across the Rocky Mountains. I would make you my comrade and companion--a hardy traveller--a dead shot. You should be no slavish English wife, sitting at home while your husband enjoyed his life. No, love, you should share every sport I had, hunt with me--shoot--fish--row--ride with me. I would not have a pleasure in life that you could not share.’ The picture was full of charm for a woman who, in her eagerness to enjoy life, had already almost exhausted the pleasures of humdrum existence. Bella felt that this would indeed be the beginning of a new life; this would be to drain to the dregs the cup of youth and gladness. And then worldly pride for once took the shape of a good angel, and pointed to the view from that wide bay-window, the Park and deer, the avenue of goodly elms, the grandeur and importance of her position as Mrs. Piper. Was she to surrender all this, and give up her name to be a byeword and a reproach into the bargain? No, she had hearkened too long to the tempter, but she was not weak enough for this. ‘You must never speak to me of this again,’ she exclaimed. ‘I will try to think there has been no serious meaning in what you have said. Let us both forget it.’ ‘I shall not forget it,’ said the captain, ‘but if you tell me to keep silence I will obey. I would do anything rather than live out of your society.’ ‘If you ever repeat what you have said this afternoon, our friendship will be ended.’ ‘Anything sooner than that.’ He took the little hand again and kissed it tenderly. So there was a kind of compact between them. He was to go on adoring her, but was to say nothing about it. Captain Standish rode back to Great Yafford in excellent humour. He had considerably embellished the fact of his return, in his conversation with Mrs. Piper. He had come back because the weather had been abominable, and the birds hardly visible behind a dense curtain of driving rain. Three days of such uncomfortable sport had been quite enough for the captain. ‘Poor little thing,’ he mused, as he walked his horse, after a swinging galop over a grassy waste, ‘how very weak she is! I am glad she doesn’t want me to run away with her. It would be uncommonly inconvenient. But when a man has flirted as desperately as I have a woman expects him to say something serious. She’s really very pretty--quite the most fascinating little thing I’ve met for a long time. And if she were single--all things being equal--I don’t think I should object to marry her.’ CHAPTER XIV. A TURN OF FORTUNE’S WHEEL.