I did not intend to tell you, but
you have forced me to do it. You see, she is a young woman of
extraordinary good sense. She believes she ought to marry, and she is
going to try to make the very best marriage that she possibly can. She
has suitors who have very strong claims upon her consideration--I am not
going to tell you those claims, but I know them. Now, you have no
claim--special claim, I mean--but for all this, I believe, as I have
told you before, that you are the man she ought to marry, and I have
been doing everything I can to make her cease considering them, and to
consider you. And this is the way she came to give me her reasons for
not considering you at all. Now the state of the case is plain before
you."

Dick bowed his head and fixed his eyes upon the dahlias on the ground.

"Don't tread on the poor things," she said, "and don't despair. All you
have to do is to let me put a curbed bit on you, and for you to consent
to wear it for a little while. See," said she, moving her hands in the
air, as if they were engaged upon the bridle of a horse, "I fasten this
chain rather closely, and buckle the ends of the reins in the lowest
curb. Now, you must have a steady hand and a resolute will until the
time comes when the curb is no longer needed."

"And do you believe that time will come?" he asked.

"It will come," she said, "when two things happen; when she has reason
to love you, and has no reason to object to you; and, in my opinion,
that happy combination may arrive if you act sensibly."

"But--" said Dick.

At this moment a quick step was heard on the garden-path and they both
turned. It was Olive.

"Mr. Lancaster," she cried, "I want you; that is, if Mrs. Easterfield
can spare you. We are making up a game of tennis. Mr. Du Brant and Mr.
Hemphill are there, but I can not find Mr. Locker."

Mrs. Easterfield could spare him, and Dick Lancaster, with the curbed
chain pressing him very hard, walked away with Olive Asher.

_CHAPTER XXIII_

_The Captain and Maria._

When the captain drove into Glenford on the day when his mind had been
so much disturbed by Dick Lancaster's questions regarding a marriage
between him and Maria Port, he stopped at no place of business, he
turned not to the right nor to the left, but went directly to the house
of his old friend with whom he had spent the night before.

Mr. Simeon Port was sitting on his front porch, reading his newspaper.
He looked up, surpri