She cut him short. ’You are bound to marry her. Do you not see that yourself? You were engaged to her before that miserable affair of Ophir intervened to destroy her happiness.’ ’After what I told you, Mirelle, that Christmas Day?’ ’Forbear!’ said Mirelle; ’never recur to, nor allude to that again. I have forgotten it—that is, I try, I pray to forget it. Yes, I entreat you to take Orange.’ ’There are several objections,’ said Trecarrel. ’In the first place, I cannot afford it.’ ’Orange has five thousand pounds.’ ’Has she no more?’ ’Not that I am aware of.’ ’What puzzles me is, how did she come by the money? I thought everything had gone when that scamp Sampson bolted.’ ’That is easily explained. John Herring gave her the money.’ ’He gave Orange five thousand pounds! This is incredible. What claim had she on him?’ ’She had been kind to me. I asked him to do it.’ ’An exemplary husband! But how the deuce did he come by so much money? I know what Welltown is worth. He cannot have saved it—men in the army spend, they do not save; he cannot have made it. He did not inherit it. Whence did it come?’ ’That concerns neither you nor me to know.’ ’Orange then really has, of her own, five thousand pounds.’ ’Yes.’ ’Has she prospects of more?’ ’I believe not.’ ’Five thousand pounds! By the way, would it be possible to organise a picnic conjointly with the Misses Phyllack to Crackington Cove? The old knight to stay at home.’ ’Captain Trecarrel, you are evading the point. You are trying to turn the subject. I am anxious; I am troubled. Do not play with me. It cost me a severe struggle to make up my mind to speak to you alone, and on this subject.’ ’Why should it cost you a struggle?’ ’It has—that is enough. Do you not see? I am pleading for a—a sister; for her happiness. Can you not understand that I am shy of doing this, and that I only do it as a duty, and for the sake of a sister?’ ’Mirelle!’ said the Captain, slowly. He looked hard at her. ’That is not it. I can read your heart more clearly than you think. You are desirous of getting me to marry Orange so as to erect a double wall of duty between yourself and me—it is because you doubt your own fortitude unless double-steeled with a sense of twofold duty——’ ’Captain Trecarrel!’ exclaimed Mirelle, in deadly terror—for he had divined and given expression to her real motive. ’I pray you say nothing about me. Put me altogether out of your thoughts. Speak only of Orange.’ ’You see there is this confounded business about Sampson in the way. Suppose the fellow be apprehended—and the whole of Boscastle is alive and out after him—and suppose the mate dies, as is most probable, Sampson will swing. Do you not see that I cannot well quarter the chevronels with a gallows?’ ’He shall escape—he must escape. Orange shall have the money! Captain Trecarrel, either take Orange, or go your way to the Land’s End.’ ’I want time to consider.’