"How dare you, sir, speak to me of my friends in that manner!" exclaimed Lucy, rising to her feet and stamping upon the ground in the excess of her indignation. "Go, sir, and never come near me again; I will never speak another word to you!" "You won't, eh?" was the sneering retort. "All right. I _will_ go; and I'll not come near you again. But I'll make you bitterly repent of your treatment of me yet, or my name is not Edward Walford." And rising to his feet, he walked rapidly up the garden, through the house, and straight out at the front door, without so much as pausing to bid his aunt good-bye. CHAPTER TWO. CAPTAIN LEICESTER HEARS BAD NEWS. In the meantime, the _Industry_ having come to an anchor in Portsmouth Harbour, Captain Leicester, waiting only to see the sails properly furled, jumped into the boat and hurried away to his owner's residence. Here he was detained for more than an hour, the individual he was desirous of seeing happening to be absent, "but expected back immediately," according to the statement of the solitary clerk who occupied the little front room which did duty as an office. The owner of the _Industry_ having at length turned up, her captain was instructed to haul alongside the wharf forthwith, in readiness to begin discharging her cargo the first thing next morning. So George Leicester, greatly to his disappointment, had to return on board once more; and it was not until the clocks were striking seven that, the schooner having been duly hauled alongside the wharf and securely moored thereto, her commander felt himself at liberty to leave her and set out upon a pilgrimage to Alverstoke. But for the delay thus occasioned, the events herein recorded would probably never have occurred, those of them at least which chiefly concern Captain Leicester.