‘Indeed,’ said he, ‘if I had surprised a secret, I would apologise; but it’s evidently known to all the islanders.’ ‘Well, but I’m not an islander,’ I cried in growing fury. The captain sat down, lit a cigarette very deliberately, and observed: ‘It was perhaps stupid of me not to have thought of it. She is, of course, a beautiful girl, but hardly, if I may say so, your equal in position, my lord.’ I jumped up and caught him by the shoulder. He might order me under arrest if he liked, but he should tell me what had happened first. ‘What’s happened?’ I reiterated. ‘Since you left us--what?’ ‘A deputation of the islanders, headed by their priest, came to ask my leave for the inhabitants to go up to the house and see their Lady.’ ‘Yes, yes. What for?’ ‘To offer her their congratulations on her betrothal--’ ‘What?’ ‘And their assurances of loyalty to her and to her husband for her sake. Oh, it simplifies the matter very much.’ ‘Oh, does it? And did you tell them they might go?’ ‘Was there any objection? Certainly. Certainly I told them they might go, and I added that I heard with great gratification that a marriage so--’ What the captain had said to the deputation I did not wait to hear. No doubt it was something highly dignified and appropriate, for he was evidently much pleased with himself. But before he could possibly have finished so ornate a sentence, I was on the deck of the yacht. I heard Denny push back his chair, whether merely in wonder or in order to follow me I did not know. I leapt from the yacht on to the jetty and started to run up the street nearly as quickly as I had run down it on the day when Mouraki was kind enough to send my friends a-fishing. At all costs I must stop the demonstration of delight which the inconvenient innocence of these islanders was preparing. Alas, the street was a desert! The movements of the captain were always leisurely. The impetuous Neopalians had wasted no time: they had got a start of me, and running up the hill after them was no joke. Against my will I was at last obliged to drop into a walk, and thus pursued my way doggedly, thinking in gloomy despair how everything conspired to push me along the road which my honour and my pledged word closed to me. Was ever man so tempted? Did ever circumstances so conspire with his own wishes, or fate make duty seem more hard?