were the only things that mattered."

"I know," Roger answered quietly, "that's the way one feels here. The
place is bewitched, I think. Well, Tip, I want to get married, and I'd
rather you'd be the one to do the business than any man I know."

"I rather suspected it," Tip said, "and I'll be mighty glad to do it
for you, Roger. Who is she?"

There was quite a pause here, and Roger puffed slowly and thoughtfully
at the old pipe and looked out of the open door toward the little bay.
By and by he spoke, and the concise clearness of what he said was most
characteristic of him.

"Of course I needn't go into all this at all," he began, "unless I
wanted to. In fact, my original idea was to have a perfect stranger
(as I somehow thought Jerry would bring) marry us without his being
any the wiser. But the minute I saw you, Tip, I felt that I'd like you
to know. But I'd rather you kept it to yourself."

He paused a moment, and Tip nodded gravely.

"Of course you have my word for that," he said.

"The woman I'm going to marry," Roger went on, in his quiet, practical
voice, "was born and brought up on this little peninsula. She has
never left it but once in her life. Her mother died when she was a
baby, her father a few weeks ago, I should say. She does not know her
father's name, nor, consequently, her own. It is evident from this
house, the furnishings and the books, that he was a gentleman and an
educated one. For as long as she can remember they were served and
looked after in every way by a woman called Hester Prynne and this
half-witted fellow called Caliban. Of course I have no idea what their
real names were. The woman died very recently and the girl was left
alone. There was a big chest fairly well filled with money under her
father's bed, but not a line or word in it to give any clue. Either
her father or mother must have been Italian, I should think, both from
her name and her general type, but she knows no Italian whatever--only
a simple childish sort of French. She is the only woman I should ever
marry if I lived a hundred years, and I want you to do it to-day. Will
you?"

I drew the long breath I had been holding during this speech and felt
a great relief. It was all so simple, after all! I hoped Tip wouldn't
spoil it, but I was afraid he would. He wasn't at all what one would
call a man of the world: he had always felt a terrible responsibility
for other people's actions, and this particular action was, to pu