“No,” said the boy. “I mean—I have never been in—love. I don’t know what you are talking about.” “Do you mean to say you are not in love with me?” demanded Rosa, springing up suddenly. “I do,” said Bassett, blushing hotly. “Then what did you follow me all round the town for, and then down here?” Bassett, who was under a pledge of secrecy to the boatswain, and, moreover, had his own ideas as to the reception the truth might meet with, preserved an agonized silence. “It’s no good,” said Rosa, eying him mournfully. “You can’t deceive me. You are head over heels, and the kindest thing I can do is to be cruel to you—for your own sake.” She sprang forward suddenly, and, before the astounded youth could dodge, dealt him a sharp box on the ear. As he reeled under the blow she boxed the other. “It’s to make you leave off loving me,” she explained; “and if I ever catch you following me again you’ll get some more; besides which I shall tell your mother.” She picked up her parasol from the trunk, and after standing regarding him for a moment with an air of offended maidenhood, walked back to the town. Bassett, after a long interval, returned by another road. CHAPTER XIX JOAN HARTLEY returned to Salthaven a week after Captain Trimblett’s departure, and, with a lively sense of her inability to satisfy the curiosity of her friends, spent most of the time indoors. To evade her father’s inquiries she adopted other measures, and the day after her return, finding both her knowledge and imagination inadequate to the task of satisfying him, she first waxed impatient and then tearful. Finally she said that she was thoroughly tired of the subject, and expressed a fervent hope that she might hear no more about it. Any further particulars would be furnished by Captain Trimblett, upon his return. “But when I asked him about it he referred me to you,” said Hartley. “The whole affair is most incomprehensible.” “We thought it would be a surprise to you,” agreed Joan. “It was,” said her father, gloomily. “But if you are satisfied, I suppose it is all right.” He returned to the attack next day, but gained _little_ information. Miss Hartley’s ideas concerning the various marriage ceremonies were of the vaguest, but by the aid of “Whitaker’s Almanack” she was enabled to declare that the marriage had taken place by license at a church in the district where Trimblett was staying. As a help to identification she added that the church was built of stone, and that the pew-opener had a cough. Tiresome questions concerning the marriage certificate were disposed of by leaving it in the captain’s pocket-book. And again she declared that she was tired of the subject. “I can’t imagine what your aunt was thinking about,” said her father. “If you had let me write—”