as long as possible.

Racked with indecision, he loitered on the parade and absent-mindedly
watched the bathers till one of the Maynard motor cars swept round the
corner by the coastguard station, pulling up opposite the boat which the
fisherman in his employ had in readiness. He thought that Violet looked
pale and preoccupied as she stepped from the car, but Aunt Sarah was as
alert and determined as ever, and, hardly deigning a word of greeting,
started across the pebbly beach for the boat. Leslie and Violet
followed, the sight of the little old lady's spindle shanks, as she
trudged over the stones with skirts held high, for the moment taking
them out of themselves.

A little later the boat was running eastward round the headland at the
river's mouth before a gently favouring breeze. The wind being steady
and the sea smooth, the boatman was left behind, Violet taking the helm
and Leslie minding the sheet. Aunt Sarah, settled comfortably forward of
the little stick of a mast, spent the first five minutes in a careful
scrutiny of the sky, and then, finding that there were no outward
evidences that she was to be drowned that morning, suddenly astounded
her shipmates with the exclamation--

"You two are in love with each other, and you can't deny it!"

There succeeded ten seconds of intense silence, and then Violet, who was
familiar with her aged relative's little ways, laughed at the
consternation on her lover's bronzed face.

"It is no use, Leslie," she said. "Aunt Sarah is a witch, and knows the
secrets of our inmost hearts. We may as well confess."

"I don't suppose it is a crime," Chermside murmured weakly, in his
confusion taking an unnecessary pull at the sheet and sending a spray
over Aunt Sarah's mantle.

"No, young man, it's not a crime," she snapped when she had recovered
her balance and her equanimity. "I'm a bit of a character reader, and I
don't think you're capable of crime--havn't got the backbone for it. But
I know that you are weak, and that you're in some sort of a hobble that
you ought to be pulled out of. Now just you be straight with me. If you
had really been the man of the means you've been credited with in this
gossipy little hole you'd have gone to my nephew Montague Maynard and
asked him for his daughter three days ago, eh?"

"I admit that. There have been misunderstandings for which I am partly
but not entirely responsible," said Leslie, marvelling at the almost
uncanny insight with whi