cting him with Oliver Tressilian. Now
that his identity was established by Pitt's testimony, it was an easy
matter to induce the courts to account him dead and to give Lionel the
coveted inheritance.

This to Rosamund was a small matter. But a great one was that Sir Oliver
was dead at law, and must be so in fact, should he ever again set foot
in England. It extinguished finally that curiously hopeless and almost
subconscious hope of hers that one day he would return. Thus it helped
her perhaps to face and accept the future which Sir John was resolved to
thrust upon her.

Her betrothal was made public, and she proved if not an ardently loving,
at least a docile and gentle mistress to Lionel. He was content. He
could ask no more in reason at the moment, and he was buoyed up by every
lover's confidence that given opportunity and time he could find the way
to awaken a response. And it must be confessed that already during their
betrothal he gave some proof of his reason for his confidence. She had
been lonely, and he dispelled her loneliness by his complete surrender
of himself to her; his restraint and his cautious, almost insidious
creeping along a path which a more clumsy fellow would have taken at
a dash made companionship possible between them and very sweet to her.
Upon this foundation her affection began gradually to rise, and seeing
them together and such excellent friends, Sir John congratulated himself
upon his wisdom and went about the fitting out of that fine ship of
his--the Silver Heron--for the coming voyage.

Thus they came within a week of the wedding, and Sir John all impatience
now. The marriage bells were to be his signal for departure; as they
fell silent the Silver Heron should spread her wings.

It was the evening of the first of June; the peal of the curfew had
faded on the air and lights were being set in the great dining-room at
Arwenack where the company was to sup. It was a small party. Just Sir
John and Rosamund and Lionel, who had lingered on that day, and Lord
Henry Goade--our chronicler--the Queen's Lieutenant of Cornwall,
together with his lady. They were visiting Sir John and they were to
remain yet a week his guests at Arwenack that they might grace the
coming nuptials.

Above in the house there was great stir of preparation for the departure
of Sir John and his ward, the latter into wedlock, the former into
unknown seas. In the turret chamber a dozen sempstresses were at work
upon t