Public opinion was still more moved when it was known where Stella was going when she first set foot outside the gates--to inquire after the rash young man who, popular opinion now believed, had beguiled her into danger. How good, how sweet, how forgiving of her! Unless, indeed, there was something--something between them, as people say. This added a new interest to the situation. The world of Sliplin had very much blamed the young men. It had thought them inexcusable from every point of view. To have taken an inexperienced girl out, who knew nothing about yachting, just when that gale was rising! It was intolerable and not to be forgiven. This judgment was modified by the illness of Captain Scott, who, everybody now found, was delicate, and ought not to have exposed himself to the perils of such an expedition. It must have been the other who was to blame, but then the other conciliated everybody by his devotion to his friend. And the community was in a very soft and amiable mood altogether when Stella was seen to issue forth from her father’s gates leaning on Katherine at one side and her stick on the other, to ask for news of her fellow-sufferer. This mood rose to enthusiasm at the sight of her paleness and at the suggestion that there probably was something between Stella and Captain Scott. It was supposed at first that he was an honourable, and a great many peerages fluttered forth. It was a disappointment to find that he was not so; but at least his father was a baronet, and himself an officer in a crack regiment, and he had been in danger of his life. All these circumstances were of an interesting kind. Stella, however, did not carry out this tender purpose at once. When she actually visited the hotel and made her way upstairs into Captain Scott’s room her own convalescence was complete, and the other invalid was getting well, and there was not only Katherine in attendance upon her, but Sir Charles, who was now commonly seen with her in her walks, and about whom Sliplin began to be divided in its mind whether it was he and not the sick man between whom and Stella there was something. He was certainly very devoted, people said, but then most men were devoted to Stella. Captain Scott had been prepared for the visit, and was eager for it, notwithstanding the disapproval of the nurse, who stood apart by the window and looked daggers at the young ladies, or at least at Stella, who took the chief place by the patient’s bedside and began to chatter to him, trying her best to get into the right tone, the tone of Mrs. Seton, and make the young man laugh. Katherine, who was not “in it,” drew aside to conciliate the attendant a little. “I don’t hold with visits when a young man is so weak,” said the nurse. “Do you know, miss, that his life just hung on a thread, so to speak? We were on the point of telegraphing for his people, me and the doctor; and he is very weak still.”