In the meantime he had many visitors, though he refrained from seeing any of them. His host told him that Miller Pendelley, Jake Pullsford, and Hal Holmes had driven more than once from Ruthallion when they heard of his illness; but of course the earliest and most constant of the enquirers after his health were Nelly Polwhele and her lover. Mr. Hartwell told him how greatly distressed they were, and perhaps it was natural, he added, that the girl should be the one who laid the greatest emphasis upon the fact that they were the cause of Mr. Wesley's suffering. She was undoubtedly a sweet and unselfish girl, Hartwell said; and he feared that Captain Snowdon thought that she was making too great a fuss in referring to the risks which he, Wesley, had run to bring her happiness. Snowdon, being a man, had not her imagination; and besides his life had been made up of running risks for the benefit of other people, and he was scarcely to be blamed if he took a less emotional view of, at least, the incident of Wesley's finding him exhausted on the shore in the early dawn. “I spoke with him to-day,” said Hartwell when his guest was able to hear these things, “and while he certainly showed himself greatly concerned at your sickness, he grumbled, half humorously, when he touched upon the way he was being neglected by the young woman. 'I am being hardly treated, sir,' he said. 'What is a simple master-mariner at best alongsides a parson with a persuasive voice? But when the parson adds on to his other qualities the dash and derring-do of a hero it seems to me that a plain man had best get into his boat, if so be that he have one, and sail away--it boots not whither, so long as he goes. Oh, ay, sir, I allow that your Mr. Wesley hath made short work of me.' Those were his words; and though they were followed by an earnest enquiry after your health, I could see that he would as lief that he owed his life to a more ordinary man.” “If I had not been overtaken by this sickness he would have had no cause for complaint,” said Wesley. After a pause he touched with caution upon a matter over which he had been thinking for some time. “Mr. Snowdon heard nothing about a rival other than myself in the young woman's regard?” he said. “Oh, not he,” replied Hartwell quickly. “Snowdon is not the fellow to listen to all that the gossips may say about Madam Nelly's liking for admiration--he knows well that so pretty a thing will be slandered, even when she shows herself to be wisely provident by seeking to have two strings to her bow. But, indeed, whatever her weakness may have been in the past, she hath been a changed girl since you first came hither. Captain Snowdon has no rival but yourself, sir, and I am certain that the honest fellow would not for the world that the young woman abated aught of her gratitude to you. He has too large a heart to harbour any thought so unworthy of a true man.”