“Don’t you see that the lad has always loved Lucy, is heartbroken over her marriage and wants to get away before the wedding?” cried John Dunlap, as he turned after closing the door upon Captain Jack’s departing figure. “What a blind old fool I am not to have seen or thought of that!” exclaimed his brother. “How I wish in my soul it was our cousin that my girl was going to marry instead of Burton, but it is too late, too late.” Sadly the darker Dunlap brother echoed the words of Lucy’s grandfather, as he sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands: Too late! Too late! Too late! II. “You don’t mean that Mr. Dunlap has consented to your going out to Australia in charge of the ‘Adams,’ do you, Captain Jack?” The man who asked the question, as he rose from the desk at which he was sitting, was quite half a head taller than the sea captain whom he addressed. His figure was elegant and graceful, though slim; his face possessed that rare beauty seen only on the canvas of old Italian masters, clearly cut features, warm olive complexion in which the color of the cheeks shows in subdued mellow shadings, soft, velvet-like brown eyes, a mouth of almost feminine character and proportion filled with teeth as regular and white as grains of rice. Save only that the white surrounding the brown of his beautiful eyes might have been clearer, that his shapely hands might have been more perfect, had a bluish tinge not marred the color of his finger nails, and his small feet might have been improved by more height of instep, Walter Burton was an ideal picture of a graceful, handsome, cultivated gentleman. “Yes, Mr. Burton, I am to sail as master of the ‘Adams.’ How soon can I get a clearance and put to sea?” “It is an absolute outrage to permit you to go to sea again so soon. Why, Captain, you have had hardly time to get your shore legs. You have not seen many of your old friends; Miss Dunlap told me last evening that she had not even seen you.” Burton’s voice was as soft, sweet and melodious as the tones of a silver flute, and the thought of the young sailor’s brief stay at home seemed to strike a chord of sadness that gave added charm to the words he uttered. “I expect to dine with my cousin tomorrow evening and will then give her greeting upon my home coming and at the same time bid her goodby upon my departure.” “I declare, Jack, this is awfully sad to me, old chap, and I know Lucy will be sorely disappointed. You know that we are to be married next month and Lucy has said a dozen times that she wished you to be present; that you had always been a tower of strength to her and that nothing could alarm or make her nervous if, as she put it, ‘brave and trustworthy Jack be near.’” The sailor’s face lost some of its color in spite of the tan that sun and sea had given it, as he listened to words that he had heard Lucy say when, as a boy and girl, they had climbed New Hampshire’s hills, or sailed along Massachusetts’ coast together.