he lawn, stopped mowing and
stared after Miss King. Then he laid down his scythe and approached
Meldon.

"Were you telling her," he asked, "of the match you had laid out for
her?"

"No," said Meldon, with a broad smile, "I wasn't."

"From the look of her," said Callaghan, "I thought maybe you might."

"Well, I wasn't. All I was trying to make plain to her was that she
couldn't marry me."

"I'd say," said Callaghan, "that she seen that plain enough, however it
was that you put it to her."

"I thought it better to make it quite clear at once," said Meldon.
"She was looking at me in a kind of way you'd hardly understand."

"I might, then," said Callaghan, still grinning.

"You would not," said Meldon. "You told me a moment ago that the
priests wouldn't let you!"

"There's many a thing," said Callaghan, "that the clergy might not
approve of, but--"

"Any how," said Meldon, "it was that kind of way she looked at me, and
I thought it better to put a stop to it at once."

"You're right there; and it's no more than what I'd expect of you."

"I don't think you quite grasp my point yet," said Meldon. "In a
general way I shouldn't mind her looking at me any way she liked. I
might have enjoyed it, if she'd done it well, as I expect she could.
But under the existing circumstances I had to stop her; because, if she
took to looking at me like that, she'd look quite another way at Mr.
Simpkins, and then he wouldn't be inclined to marry her."

"You're dead set on that match," said Callaghan.

"I am. It's most important that it should come off."

"She's a fine girl," said Callaghan. "She's too good for the like of
Simpkins. He'll be tormenting her the way he does be tormenting
everybody about the place."

"Believe you me," said Meldon, "she'll know how to manage him."

"She might," said Callaghan. "By the looks of her, when she left you
this minute, I wouldn't say but she might."

CHAPTER VIII.

It was eight o'clock, and the evening was deliciously warm. Major Kent
and Meldon sat in hammock chairs on the gravel outside Portsmouth
Lodge. They had dined comfortably, and their pipes were lit. For a
time neither of them spoke. Below them, beyond the wall which bounded
the lawn, lay the waters of the bay, where the _Spindrift_, Major
Kent's yacht, hung motionless over her mooring-buoy. The eyes of both
men were fixed on her.

"I feel," said Meldon at last, "like the village blacksmith."

"There