The captain, who seemed to treat his evidently unwelcome visitor with a kind of deference, shrugged his shoulders, and led the way into the sitting-room, where the remains of a substantial meal graced the table. Jasper Rodley made himself very comfortable in an armchair; the captain, who was the wreck of a fine man, and who, being lame from a recent accident, used a stick, remained standing, as if uncertain how to proceed next; whilst poor Bertha stood, trembling with fright, by the door. ‘Captain,’ said the visitor, ‘isn’t ten o’clock the usual time for young ladies to go to bed?’ At this hint, the old man made a signal to his daughter, who retired. ‘Now then,’ continued Rodley, ‘let’s to business.’ ‘I’m not aware that I have any business with you,’ said the captain. ‘Well, you’ll soon have some with me. Look here. We’re men of the world, and we must understand each other. I’ve only met you twice before: each time you were coming from the same place, and each time you were astonished, in fact, alarmed, at seeing me.’ ‘Well, sir, and what of that?’ asked the old sailor. ‘Here am I, an old East India Company’s skipper, living in a lonely place, where I don’t see half-a-dozen people in the course of a month. You came upon me suddenly, just when it was getting dark, and I was naturally startled.’ ‘O no; that’s not it,’ continued Rodley. ‘But we’ll leave that for a bit. First of all, I’m head over heels in love with your daughter.’ ‘I’m sorry for it.’ ‘And I intend to marry her,’ continued his visitor. ‘That depends firstly whether she will have you, which I very much doubt,’ said the captain; ‘and secondly upon whether I let her go, which I also doubt.’ ‘So you think,’ sneered Rodley. ‘Now, then, to the other matter. Four years ago, you were a poor man.’ ‘So I am now,’ retorted the captain. ‘O no; you’re very well off; your private bank is safe enough.’ The captain fidgeted uneasily in his chair at this. ‘You see, I know more than you think,’ said Rodley; and bending over and speaking in a lower tone of voice, he added: ‘Is it not a little curious that you should have come into your fortune about the same time that the _Fancy Lass_ was wrecked about a hundred yards from your house?’ The poor old captain’s amazement and perplexity culminated here in a start which sent his pipe flying from his hand. ‘Why, how do you know? Who told you?’ gasped the old man. ‘Not a soul escaped from her.’ Jasper Rodley looked searchingly at him for a moment, and said: ‘Perhaps not. That’s got nothing to do with what we are talking about.’ ‘And the boat went to pieces,’ added the captain. ‘You’re almost as well up in the subject as I am,’ said Rodley. ‘But she was wrecked on Sherringham Shoal, and went to pieces on the Locket Rock.’ ‘Well?’ asked the captain. ‘And her cargo—valuable cargo it was,’ continued Rodley, actually smiling with enjoyment at the misery he was causing—‘her cargo was recovered.’