A West Indian planter, one George Bazalgette, had been over on a visit, he said, and had spent Christmas at Maythorn Bank; his object being to induce Verena to accept him as her husband. Verena would not listen to him, and he wasted his eloquence in vain. She made no hesitation in vowing to him that her affections were buried in the grave of Edward Pym. "Fontaine told me confidentially in London that he intended she _should_ have Bazalgette," remarked the Squire. "It was the evening we went looking for her at that wax-work place." "Ay; but Fontaine is changed," returned the colonel: "all his old domineering ways are gone out of him. When Bazalgette was over here, he did not attempt even to persuade her: she must take her own course, he said. So poor Bazalgette went back as he came--wifeless. It was a pity." "Why?" "Because this George Bazalgette was a nice fellow," replied Colonel Letsom. "An open-hearted, fine-looking, generous man, and desperately in love with her. Miss Verena will not readily find his compeer in a summer day's march." "As old as Adam, I suppose, colonel," interjected Tod. "Yes--if you choose to put Adam's age down at three or four and thirty," laughed the colonel, as he took his leave. To wait many hours, once she was at Crabb, without laying in a stock of those delectable "family pills," invented by the late Thomas Rymer, would have been quite beyond the philosophy of Mrs. Todhetley. That first morning, not ten minutes after Colonel Letsom left us, taking the Squire with him, she despatched me to Timberdale for a big box of them. Tod would not come: said he had his flies to see to. Dashing through the Ravine and out on the field beyond it, I came upon Jack Tanerton. Good old Jack! The Squire had said Sir Dace was changed: I saw that Jack was. He looked taller and thinner, and the once beaming face had care upon it. "Where are you bound for, Jack?" "Not for any place in particular. Just sauntering about." "Walk my way, then. I am going to Rymer's." "It is such nonsense," cried Jack, speaking of his brother, after we had plunged a bit into affairs. "Calling it derogatory, and all the rest of it! I could be just as much of a gentleman as Ashton's bailiff as I am now. Everybody knows me. He gives a good salary, and there's a pretty house; and I have also my own small income. Alice and I and the little ones should be as happy as the day's long. If I give in to Herbert and don't take it, I don't see what I am to turn to." "But, Jack, why do you give up the sea?" I asked. And Jack told me what he had told others: he should never take command again until he was a free man. "Don't you think you are letting that past matter hold too great an influence over you?" I presently said. "You must be conscious of your own innocence--and yet you seem as sad and subdued as though you were guilty!"