So near had Danton been to Fessenden’s thoughts that he was able instantly to connect the Baltimorean’s presence with the shopkeeper’s talk of the people from the steam yacht. He was the first to speak.

“Where’s Betty?”

“She’s with my wife—on the West Wind.”

“Your wife?”

“Yes. I was married two days ago.”

“Danton! You—married? You’re joking, old man.”

“Not in the least. I was married last Sunday—to Madge Yarnell.”

“Madge Yarnell! What!”

“Is Mrs. Charles Danton,” said the other.

Fessenden was too dumfounded to do aught but stare. His friend slipped an arm through his and turned him about.

“There’s room for us on the bench there. Let’s talk it over. Madge and Betty are doing the same down in the sand-hills now.”

Fessenden yielded without a word, and they seated themselves on the bench.

Danton was a man under thirty years. He was slight and pale, and had much of the abrupt manner of that ancestor who had come to Baltimore in the train of Jerome Bonaparte, and who, like his master, had found a wife there.

“You’re really married?” said Fessenden. “By Jove! I can’t get over it. To Madge Yarnell, too. Then what in the world has become of—of—ah—”

“Of a certain other lady?” appended his friend with perfect coolness. “I don’t blame you for wondering about her. But never mind now. I want to tell you about my wedding. It was unique in the history of the Chesapeake, I promise you.” His laugh had a ring of heartiness that surprised his listener. “Tom,” he went on, “I’ll be frank with you. I’ve been in more than one crooked path in my time, but I’m through with that sort of thing. Thank Heaven!”

The other’s amazement found expression. “I swear I don’t know you. What’s come over you?”

“Love,” said Danton simply. “Madge’s love, and all that it means. She says she has told you of that tearing down the flag matter last year. That proved to me and to her that I owned her—I’d known for a long time that she owned me, you understand—but after that affair she sent me away, and I, in revenge, went after—I was a cad, I know. Well, I hope I’ll never be again.”

“About your wedding, old man?”

“I’m coming to that—and I’ll skip the long story between. Last Saturday, after Madge met you and Betty on the road, she galloped to Sandywood Station, and sent me a reply to the wire I’d sent you.”

“A bit cool, that.”

“I’ve got it my pocket now. Here!” He read the bluish slip, smiling faintly the while.

Impossible to come, but understand. She promises to be West Wind eight o’clock Sunday night, ready.

“Hum! What did that mean?”

“It meant that I thought I understood. I thought that you had discovered the—the Other Lady, in the farmhouse where she was hiding from me. I believed she’d told you to tell me she was ready—at last. I’d had the Wisp stored for that very reason, you know, and then shifted to the West Wind because it was larger and more seaworthy, in case she wanted to go right across to Gibraltar.”

“Was it as near a thing as that?”

“No matter now. The result of the telegram was that I was at Polocoke landing and aboard the West Wind by eight o’clock Sunday night. I give you my word I never dreamed of a trick—who would?”

“I don’t see——”

“You will in a moment. My skipper, Williams, met me as I came aboard. ‘She’s below, sir,’ he said, ‘and gave orders we were to put to sea just as soon as you turned up.’ Faithful soul! He didn’t know he’d been tricked either—doesn’t know it yet, for that matter. He’d run away with the Queen of India if he thought I wanted it done. ‘Right,’ I told him. ‘Shove off, and go full speed as soon as you’re clear.’ With that, I dived down into the main cabin. She wasn’t there, and I looked into my stateroom. I couldn’t see her there either, so I stepped to the inner stateroom—the two connect, you understand—where I thought she must be.”

He smiled soberly at Fessenden’s interested face. “Tom,” he said, “every word I’m telling you is for your soul’s good. It’s all the truth, but it’s a parable, too—for you. Well, as I reached the doorway between the two rooms, somebody seized both my elbows from behind. By George! She’s as strong as a man.”

“What! Not——”

“Yes, Madge.”

“Great Scott! I begin to have a glimmer.”

“I had just time to see that it was Madge before she pushed me inside—into the inner room—and slammed the door behind me. It locked with a spring.”

“She was outside?”

“Yes, in my room. I was inside that.”

“I understand.”

“Precisely. I fancy I don’t need to tell you much more. I was a prisoner in my own yacht, and that yacht headed full speed down the bay, my men acting upon what they thought were my own orders. A lovely girl was in my room. I was as much separated from her as if I were in the moon, but my own crew couldn’t know that, and neither could the world.”

“She’s a heroine.”

“She is—the most adorable in the world! She talked to me through the closed door. What she said—well, that’s only for her and me. I saw at last what a mad fool I’d been. Then—then she threw herself on my mercy.”

“You seem to have played the man.”

“She’d make a man of a snake! I saw myself in my true light at last; and I understood her at last. God bless her!”

“Amen!”

“We ran on down to Old Point Comfort, and the chaplain at the fort married us that same night.”

The two men shook hands.

“After we left Old Point,” went on Danton, “we cruised about a bit, got mussed up by the storm, and ran in here. And then you—you and Betty appeared.”

His emphasis brought a penetrating look from Fessenden.

“You said you were telling me a parable. You don’t mean—surely you can’t—Betty!”

“I do.”

“Do you dare to think——”

“I don’t think anything. What I say is that my case furnishes a parallel to yours.”

“Speak out, man! What! You mean you think I ought to marry her?”

“Well, then—yes.”

“Good God! Marry Betty!”

“Yes.”

Fessenden rose abruptly to his feet and walked away a few paces. He stared unseeingly across the stretch of sand to the sea beyond.

A hundred images of Betty flitted before his mind’s eye—images graceful and smiling, sad and gay, merry and serious, always infinitely winsome. Her voice sounded in his ear—teasing, angry, kind—always low-toned and charming.

He faced Danton. “Marry her? I’ve been wanting to do that very thing since the first minute I saw her—only, I didn’t know it.”

His friend’s face shone with relief and pleasure. He broke into a boyish laugh.

“Great!” he said. “You’re the right sort, Tom. I knew it, and I told Madge so.”

Fessenden could not respond to the other’s mood. “All very well. But what will Betty say?”

“Ask her.”

“I intend to. But is she old enough—is she in a position—to understand?”

“I tell you, yes.”

“And I tell you I’m very doubtful. A mere child, a country girl, ignorant of the world, ignorant, perhaps, of what marriage means! It’s a hard position for me, and it may be worse—it may be horrible—for her.”

“Ask her,” repeated Danton. “Look there!” He levelled his walking-stick. “Do you see the dunes there—the second hill? Somewhere beyond that you’ll find Madge and Betty.”

Without another word, Fessenden pulled his cap over his eyes and strode off.

He skirted the first hillock, and on its farther side came abruptly upon Madge Danton. She gave him a warm hand. Her eyes had lost their defiant look; rather, it seemed to him, they included the world in their gentle glance.

“You’ll find her beyond the next hill,” she said.

“You’ve talked to her—as Danton talked to me?”

“Yes. She understands—her position. I know I don’t need to warn you to be—careful.”

“No, no.”

He did not find Betty beyond the next hill, nor the next. But, hastening down the hollow ways, he almost stumbled over her at last—on a sunny slope above the sea.

She looked up at him, her eyes as clear as crystal. “Hello, Boatswain Bob!”

The greeting steadied him immeasurably. He knew that not so much what he should say in the next few minutes, as how he should say it, might determine the course of their lives. He longed with all his strength to be given a divine tact and a divine gift of speech.

He threw himself on the sand at a respectful distance. “Hello, Nancy Lee!”

Thanks to Kitty Hawk’s “Bazaar,” a scarlet ribbon again shone at Betty’s throat. Her hair was as he had last seen it—coiled superbly about her head. Again he felt the air of dignity and aloofness of which the coiled hair seemed the symbol.

Fessenden’s eyes, quiet and tender, met her own, his glance as clear as hers.

“Betty,” he said, very simply, “we’ve been through a lot together, and I want you to marry me. Will you? Don’t think I’m asking you because of any chivalrous fancy. I want you because I love you, and for nothing else in the world.” His own words fired him. “Dearest, I’ve loved you since the first minute I saw you. You know that—in the bottom of your heart, you know that’s true.”

Her eyes, which at first had met his unwaveringly, quailed a little. The red crept slowly into her cheeks.