As he bore this testimony to his wife’s fidelity there was a knock at the door, and, upon his opening it, the rector’s daughter, a lady of uncertain age, entered, and stood regarding with amazement the frantic but ineffectual struggles of Captain Crippen to release himself from a position as uncomfortable as it was ridiculous.

“Mrs. Pepper!” said the lady, aghast.  “Oh, Mrs. Pepper!”

“It’s all right, Miss Winthrop,” said the lady addressed, calmly, as she forced the captain’s flushed face on to her ample shoulder again; “it’s my first husband, Jem Budd.”

“Good gracious!” said Miss Winthrop, starting.  “Enoch Arden in the flesh!”

“Who?” inquired Pepper, with a show of polite interest.

“Enoch Arden,” said Miss Winthrop.  “One of our great poets wrote a noble poem about a sailor who came home and found that his wife had married again; but, in the poem, the first husband went away without making himself known, and died of a broken heart.”

She looked at Captain Crippen as though he hadn’t quite come up to her expectations.

“And now,” said Pepper, speaking with great cheerfulness, “it’s me that’s got to have the broken heart.  Well, well.”

“It’s a most interesting case,” cried Miss Winthrop; “and, if you wait till I fetch my camera, I’ll take your portrait together just as you are.”

“Do,” said Mrs. Pepper cordially.

“I won’t have my portrait took,” said the captain, with much acerbity.

“Not if I wish it, dear?” inquired Mrs. Pepper tenderly.

“Not if you keep a-wishing it all your life,” replied the captain sourly, making another attempt to get his head from her shoulder.

“Don’t you think they ought to have their portrait taken now?” asked Miss Winthrop, turning to the ex-pilot.

“I don’t see no ’arm in it,” said Pepper thoughtlessly.

“You hear what Mr. Pepper says,” said the lady, turning to the captain again.  “Surely if he doesn’t mind, you ought not to.”

“I’ll talk to him by-and-bye,” said the captain, very grimly.

“P’raps it would be better if we kept this affair to ourselves for the present,” said the ex-pilot, taking alarm at his friend’s manner.

“Well, I won’t intrude on you any longer,” said Miss Winthrop.  “Oh!  Look there!  How rude of them!”

The others turned hastily in time to see several heads vanish from the window.  Captain Crippen was the first to speak.

“Jem!” said Mrs. Pepper severely, before he had finished.

“Captain Budd!” said Miss Winthrop, flushing.

The incensed captain rose to his feet and paced up and down the room.  He looked at the ex-pilot, and that small schemer shivered.

“Easy does it, cap’n,” he murmured, with a wink which he meant to be comforting.

“I’m going out a little way,” said the captain, after the rector’s daughter had gone.  “Just to cool my head.”