nd
arguments by which the captain sought to justify his refusal. He began
to get confused and rambling in his defence, and finally, to terminate
an embarrassing interview, grunted out something about thinking it over.
A moment later a radiant and admiring young woman was flattering him up
to the skies.

"Mind, I only said I would think it over," said the captain, regarding
her indignantly.

"Of course," said Joan, "I quite understand that; and you will write and
break the news to father, won't you?"

"No, I'm hanged if I do," answered the captain.

"Never mind, then; I'll do it," said the girl, hastily. "I shall just
write and tell him that I have changed my name to Trimblett. People
have a right to change their name if they like. Lots of them do it.
Make haste, you'll lose your omnibus. I shall never forget your
kindness--never."

"Mind!" panted the captain, as she hurried him along,
"it--isn't--settled. I am only going to think it over."

"I don't know what we should have done without you," continued Joan.
"There isn't another man in the world would be so kind, I am sure.
If you were only thirty or forty years younger I would marry you in
reality."

"Mind!" said the captain, grasping the rail of the omnibus and pausing
with his foot on the step, "I haven't--promised."

[Illustration: Mind, I haven't promised 212]

"I'll write and tell you when I've done it," said Joan. "I'll take all
the responsibility. Good-by! Good-by!"

The conductor hoisted him aboard and he slowly mounted the stairs. He
paused at the top to wave a feeble hand, and then, subsiding heavily
into a seat, sat thinking out a long and polite letter of refusal.

CHAPTER XVII

JOAN HARTLEY'S letter to her father was not so easy to write as she had
imagined. She tore up draft after draft, and at last, in despair, wrote
him a brief and dutiful epistle, informing him that she had changed
her name to Tremblett. She added--in a postscript--that she expected he
would be surprised; and, having finished her task, sat trying to decide
whether to commit it to the post or the flames.

It was a question that occupied her all the evening, and the following
morning found her still undecided. It was not until the afternoon, when
a letter came from Captain Trimblett, declining in violent terms and at
great length to be a party to her scheme, that she made up her mind. The
information that he had been recalled to Salthaven on the day following
only