Her husband was on his knees beside her. He had come to the room just in time to catch her as she fell from the piano stool. Now she had recovered and was whispering passionately, "Justin,--if I should ever grow weak and nervous, and ask you to tell me anything you might know to the prejudice of my father, you would not do so?" "No, darling; no, no." "I would not really wish to hear it. I could not bear it. He was so good, so perfect. I never found any fault in him. You liked him, Justin?" "Yes, my own wife, I did." "And Justin, if ever we should have a little child, or if I should have to die and leave it, you would never tell it anything against the father of its mother?" "Never, never, God helping me. I will guard his reputation as I would my own; but do not speak of leaving me. I cannot bear it," and gathering her exhausted figure in his arms, he carried her to the open window. CHAPTER XXXII. A BRANCH CUT OFF. At ten o'clock that night, there was not in all the State an uglier and sorer man than H. Robinson. He impatiently thumped Miss Gastonguay's binocular on his fat knee. All the afternoon he had been searching the glittering surface of Merry Meeting Bay. There was no steam yacht in sight carrying a blue flag with a pine-tree on its fluttering folds. No brace of blue lights appeared now that soft darkness had enveloped the Bay, although various yachts and boats bearing lights of every other colour of the rainbow had come slipping in from the sea to their resting-places beside the wharves. He had been tricked. The treacherous young woman and the slippery sailor had thrown dust in his eyes. Well, he would make them pay for their trickery before the dance was over, and he ground his teeth and glowered at his two companions. The chief of police, soothed by the calm beauty of the moonless night and happy from the elaborate dinner that had been served to them here on the roof of the boat-house, was peacefully snoring in a hammock. He only partly understood the affair. There was some humbuggery about it, and he could not rid himself of the conviction that H. Robinson was slightly cracked, and that the volatile Captain White for some hidden reason was aiding and abetting him in his delusion. Anyway, he didn't like being sworn at, and although he would by no means defeat the ends of justice, he earnestly hoped that Miss Gastonguay would land her mysterious old woman and girl at some port down the coast, and let this Boston fellow go home with his tail between his legs. Captain White was not asleep. H. Robinson knew that he was only pretending to nap in his big wicker chair, and that he heard every one of the occasional sentences growled at him.