Meanwhile, also, the course of events was--so far as Jeremiah Pamflett was mixed up in his affairs--fairly satisfactory to Captain Ablewhite. Instead of being dunned for the money he owed Jeremiah--which by Jeremiah's cunning methods of compound interest, was beginning to swell into an important amount--he borrowed more of him; small sums at a time, certainly, but, as Captain Ablewhite said to himself, "Little fish are sweet." As Jeremiah had him in his power, so also the smiling Captain had managed to obtain a hold upon the man from whom, in ordinary circumstances, he knew he would get no mercy. Of a different quality of cunning from Jeremiah's was the standard of Captain Ablewhite's intellect, but, properly handled, it was scarcely less powerful. All his life had Captain Ablewhite lived upon his wits, eating and drinking of the best, a member of good clubs, living in fashionable quarters, owing money right and left, and yet managing somehow to keep out of water too hot for him. He entertained a very thorough and sincere contempt for Jeremiah, laughed in his sleeve at his meanness, fooled him on and on, allowed him to win a little at his card-parties, introduced him to men as impecunious and unscrupulous as himself, who borrowed money of Jeremiah, and would have pulled his nose upon the smallest provocation. But Jeremiah was always humble, cringing, and subservient, biding his time for the grand coup which would make him as good as the best among them. And so the game went on, its minutest detail assisting to bring to a terrible climax the tragedy in which Phoebe's life was presently to be engulfed. This brings us to the day upon which our heroine, accompanied by Fred Cornwall and dear Aunt Leth, journeyed to Parksides to ask her father's consent to her engagement with the young lawyer. CHAPTER XIV. A DAUGHTER'S DUTIES.