"He seemed very anxious, certainly," said the captain. "Anxious? I should think so. I knew what a tremor he'd be in when I sent that letter. Well, I only hope he'll engage rooms at every blessed inn in the place--and pay for 'em. I won't stop anywhere now, especially a place of his choosing. No inn shall hold me; I'll stop here." "But, my dear madam----" began the captain. She turned on him fiercely. "Silence, sir! How dare you? This is my brother-in-law's house, and I have a right to stop here if I will. What's it to do with you? I never heard of such a thing. Do you think I'm afraid of a dead man, or forty dead men? I'll stop just where I please, I'll have you know." She turned away from him angrily, and drew Comethup toward her. Bidding him stand quite still, she began to pass her hands over his face, touching every feature so lightly that he scarcely felt the touch at all; she dropped her hands finally with a sigh of satisfaction, bade him speak again, and, on being obeyed, sighed with still deeper satisfaction, and sat for a long time deep in thought. The captain was beginning to wonder what he should do, and was doubtful whether to stay or to go, although he scarcely cared to leave the boy in that house of death, when Miss Charlotte Carlaw seemed to plunge at once into his thoughts and to know them unerringly. "You needn't be afraid to leave the boy here," she said, sharply. "I can look after myself and him better than any two of you if I am blind. I suppose there's a servant in the house, so that I can send for anything if it's wanted?" The captain reassured her upon that point, and she jerked her head at him in dismissal. The captain courteously bade her "Good-day," patted Comethup on the shoulder as he passed, and went out. After a few moments of silence she asked the boy abruptly: "Your voice startled me so that I forget what you said your name was. What is it?" Comethup told her, slurring the word as much as he could to get over the cumbrousness of it; but she made him repeat it again and again, and each time more slowly, until she had got it completely; then she turned it over and over angrily, pronouncing it quickly and slowly, and with the accent here and the accent there; finally shook her head over it and exclaimed: "I can't think what they gave you that ridiculous name for; I don't like it. We'll change it." Comethup thought of 'Linda, and of how she had expressed her appreciation of it, and said courageously, "I like it." "Oh, then we won't change it," said Miss Carlaw, and began to talk of other things. Now it happened that the captain, on his way to his house, ran full tilt against Mr. Robert Carlaw, who was coming round a corner looking very dejected. He informed the captain that he had been to the station five times and had met every possible train, that he had engaged rooms, that he had done everything, and still there was no sign of that dear eccentric creature, his sister.