“But what message did she send me?” he asked quickly.  “Did she say when she was coming again?”

Dick hesitated; Olive had said that she wanted her uncle to say when he wanted to see her, so that there should be no more surprising, but this request had been conditional.  Dick knew that she did not want to come if her uncle were going to marry Miss Port; therefore it was that he hesitated.

“Before we go any further,” he said, “I think I would better mention a little thing which will make you laugh, but still it did worry Miss Asher, and was one reason why she went back to Broadstone without stopping.”

“What is it” asked the captain, putting down his pipe.

Dick did not come out plainly and frankly, as he had told Olive he would do when he mentioned the Maria Port matter.  In his own heart he could not help believing now that Olive’s suspicions had had good foundations, and old Jane’s announcements, combined with the captain’s own actions in regard to the Port family, had almost convinced him that this miserable engagement was a fact.  But, of course, he would not in any way intimate to the captain that he believed in such nonsense, and therefore, in an offhand manner, he mentioned Olive’s absurd anxiety in regard to Miss Port.

When the captain heard Dick’s statement he answered it in the most frank and plain manner; he brought his big hand down on his knee and swore as if one of his crew had boldly contradicted him.  He did not swear at anybody in particular; there was the roar and the crash of the thunder and the flash of the lightning, but no direct stroke descended upon any one.  He was angry that such a repulsive and offensive thing as his marriage to Maria Port should be mentioned, or even thought of, but he was enraged when he heard that his niece had believed him capable of such disgusting insanity.  With a jerk he rose to his feet.

“I will not talk about such a thing as this,” he said.  “If I did I am sure I should say something hard about my niece, and I don’t want to do that.”  With this he strode away, and proceeded to look after the concerns of his little farm.

Old Jane came cautiously to Dick.  “Did he tell you when it was going to be, or anything about it?” she asked.

“No,” said Dick, “he would not even speak of it.”

“I suppose he expects us to mind our own business,” said she, “and of course we’ll have to do it, but I can tell him one thing—­I’m goin’ to make it my business to leave this place the day before that woman comes here.”

Dejected and thoughtful, Dick sat in the arbor.  Here was a state of affairs very different from what he had anticipated.  He had not been able to hurry to her the evening before; he had not gone to breakfast as she had invited him; he had not started off early in the forenoon; and now he asked himself when should he go, or, indeed, why should he go at all?  She had no anxieties he could relieve.  Anything he could tell her would only heap more unhappiness upon her, and the longer he could keep his news from her the better it would be for her.