And later still a row-boat came swinging briskly up the quiet channel where the yacht lay and passed her at fifty yards. A man and a woman sat in it, presumably bound for Hunston, and they stared at the hidden, detected _Cypriani_ with a degree of frank interest which suggested that they would not fail to mention the strange sight to every acquaintance they met in town. "That's the beauty about a yacht," thought Varney, annoyed. "You might as well try to hide an elephant in a hall room." But his mind soon strayed from the pair of bumpkins and went off to other and more pressing matters. He had now, not one great difficulty to meet and overcome, but two. One of them was to make Uncle Elbert's daughter keep her engagement with him. The other was to prevent the _Gazette_ from linking the name of the _Cypriani_ with the name of Carstairs to-morrow morning. About the first of these he allowed himself no doubts. If the worst came to the worst, he would turn to Mrs. Carstairs. Brutal it might be to compel the mother to introduce the kidnapper to his quarry, her daughter; but that was no fault of his. He would do his duty by Mrs. Carstairs's husband, no matter who got hurt. Miss Carstairs should come to the _Cypriani_ to-morrow as she had promised. In heaven or earth, on land or sea, there was no power which should keep him from having his will there. But then there was the _Gazette_. Smith, the clever, would doubt that the _Cypriani_ had really gone back to New York. Suppose, since he could not find her, he would venture a few shrewd guesses in his paper to-morrow morning connecting that "secret mission" the _Daily_ had mentioned with Mrs. Elbert Carstairs. Miss Carstairs would see what the _Gazette_ said; and what questions would she have to ask him before she would come as his guest to the yacht?... A ripple of water fell across the young man's thought, and he glanced up. The college professor, whom the current had washed much nearer now, fancying, it appeared, that he had got a bite, had suddenly thrown himself far over the edge of his canoe, stretching his rod to the farthest reach. The slender birch-bark tipped so violently that even he noticed it; and the next instant, he sprang back again, rocking at a great rate. "Simpleton!" thought Varney. "He will go over in a minute...." Now her face rose before him as he had seen it first last night at Stanhope's cottage, radiant as a dream come true--looking at him and saying: "I'd like it very much if you could just trust _me!_" And he saw her again when she had looked at him, eye to eye over the many heads before the theatre, with only blank unrecognition in her glance, or had there been, after all, a sort of latent sorrowfulness there? And then he saw her once more, as she stood in the little box-office, her cheeks suddenly stained red, when she begged him, please, not to ask her to discuss it any more....