'In anything beyond that,' continued Alison, 'you perhaps do me honour, but in any instance I can never love where I do not respect and esteem.' 'And have I forfeited your esteem?' 'Yes.' 'In what way?' 'By trepanning me on board this yacht--away from home and my friends!' 'Friends at Aldershot,' thought Cadbury, as he laughed to himself and said, 'But why so severe a term as trepanning?' 'You led me to believe when we quitted Chilcote in such hot haste that instant flight alone in this vessel would save papa from arrest through certain bills which he says he saw you destroy. So you and he--_he_,' she added, with a heavy sob--'have both deceived me, and now I believe neither of you. It was a vile trick on the part of you both to separate me from Captain Goring.' Cadbury had reckoned at least upon her gratitude for taking up the bills of Slagg, as he had to some extent won that of her father; but even this plan failed to serve him, and so far as Alison was concerned he might as well have thrown his money into the sea. The name of his rival on her lips infuriated him, and he tugged at his long, white horse-shoe moustache viciously, as he thought that he had played what he deemed his trump card, and yet lost after all! He gave her a glance of a rather mingled nature and retreated to the deck, where his discomposure of face and manner was so apparent to Sir Ranald that, after a few words of explanation, the latter sought the cabin to remonstrate with the unfortunate and weary Alison. As was before hinted, Sir Ranald's emotions were of a curiously mingled nature. He felt that he certainly owed a debt of gratitude to Lord Cadbury for relieving him of terrible monetary pressure, and he was anxious, for various reasons, that Alison should accept him. He had no romance in his nature--never had any, and did not believe that disparity of years and tastes--still less a secret or previous fancy--were to be valued or consulted at all! He felt that he acted wisely to his daughter in leaguing with the wealthy peer against her; yet, over and above all, he loved her dearly and tenderly; and amid all this was an undying hostility to Bevil Goring, whom he deemed the real cause of all this opposition to their wishes, and consequently the present trouble, turmoil, and unnecessary voyaging in rough and wintry weather. Though it was a relief, without doubt, to be away now beyond the reach or ken of the hook-nosed or vulture-eyed money-lenders, who, like Slagg, had long possessed, among their ofttimes hopelessly-regarded assets, his bills and acceptances. He saw she looked pale, very pale indeed; but that, of course, he attributed to the _mal de mer_; but as for love, no one, he believed, ever sickened or died of that. A long separation was the surest and best cure.