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regard her as a Mohammedan ward or a houri or a Princess of
Babylon, just as they choose.
Pasquale must be right. A hundred remembered incidents go to
prove it. I recollect now that Judith has rallied me on my
obtuseness.
The sole end of all my Aunt Jessica's manoeuvring is to marry me
to Dora, and Dora, like Barkis, is willing. Marry Dora! The
thought is a febrifuge, a sudorific! She would be thumping
discords on my wornout strings all day long. In a month I should
be a writhing madman. I would sooner, infinitely sooner, marry
Carlotta. Carlotta is nature; Dora isn't even art. Why, in the
name of men and angels, should I marry Dora? And why (save to
call herself Lady Ordeyne) should she want to marry me? I have
not trifled with her virgin affections; and that she is
nourishing a romantic passion for me of spontaneous growth I
decline to believe. For aught I care she can be as inconsolable
as Calypso. It will do her good. She can write a little story
about it in _The Sirens' Magazine_.
I am shocked. For all her bouncing ways and animal health and
incorrect information, I thought Dora was a niceminded girl.
Do niceminded girls hunt husbands?
Good heavens! This looks like the subject of a sillyseason
correspondence in _The Daily Telegraph_.
_Campsie, N.B._ Hither have I fled from my buccaneering
relations. I am seeking shelter in a manse in the midst of a
Scotch moor, and the village, half a mile away, is itself five
miles from a railway station. Here I can defy Aunt Jessica.
After my conversation with Pasquale, I passed a restless night.
My slumbers were haunted by dreams of pirate yachts flying the
jolly Roger, on which the skull and crossbones melted grotesquely
into a weddingring and a true lovers' knot. I awoke to the
conviction that so long as the vessel remained on English waters
I could find no security in London. I resolved on flight. But
whither?
Verily the high gods must hold me in peculiar favour. The first
letter I opened was from old Simon McQuhatty, my present host, a
godfather of my mother, who alone of mortals befriended us in the
dark days of long ago. He was old and infirm, he wrote, and
Gossip Death was waiting for him on the moor; but before he went
to join him he would like to see Susan's boy again. I could come
whenever I liked. A telegram from Euston before I started would
be sufficient notice. I sent Stenson out with a telegram to say
I was starting that very day by the two o'clock train, and I

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