"There is some mystery here, and I am going to get at the bottom of it," he said, resolutely; "Cherrie, let me go home with you, and see if we cannot clear it up by the way."
"With me?" said Cherrie, stepping back, and looking at him disdainfully; "why, what would Miss Marsh say to that?"
A light broke on the captain.
"Miss Marsh! Why, what have I to do with Miss Marsh?"
"A great deal, I should think, after what passed between you over there on the beach."
"Cherrie! where were you? Not listening?"
"I was passing," said Miss Nettleby, stiffly, "and I chanced to overhear. It wasn't my fault if you spoke out loud."
Even Captain Cavendish stood for a moment non-plussed by this turn of affairs. He had no desire his proposal to Miss Marsh should become public property, for many reasons; and he knew he might as well have published it in the Speckport Spouter, as let Cherrie find it out. Another thing he did not want – to lose Cherrie; she was a great deal too pretty, and he fancied her a great deal too much for that.
"Cherrie, that was all an – an accident! I didn't mean anything! There are too many people looking at us here, to talk; but, if you will go home, I will explain by the way."
"No," said Cherrie, standing resolutely on her dignity, but trying to keep from crying, "I can't. I promised Mr. Marsh to wait for him."
"Oh, confound Mr. Marsh! Come with me, and never mind him."
"No, Captain Cavendish; I think I'll wait. Charley thinks more of me than you do, since he asked me to marry him this afternoon, and I am going to do it."
Captain Cavendish looked at her. He knew Cherrie's regard for truth was not the most stringent; that she would invent, and tell a fib with all the composure in life, but she was palpably telling no falsehood this time. He saw it in the triumphant flash of her black eyes, in the flush of her face, and set his teeth inwardly with anger and mortification. "How blessings brighten as they take their flight!" Never had Cherrie Nettleby looked so beautiful; never had her eyes been so much like black diamonds as now, when their light seemed setting to him forever. Captain Cavendish believed her, and resolved not to lose her, in spite of all the Charley Marshes in the world.
"So Marsh has asked you to be his wife, has he? Now, Cherrie, suppose I asked you the same question, what would you say?"
"You asked Miss Marsh to-day, and I think that's enough."
"I did not mean it, Cherrie. I swear I did not! I am fifty times as much in love with you as I am with her."
And Captain Cavendish was speaking truth. Humiliating as it is to say so of one's heroine, the black-eyed grisette was a hundred times more to his taste than the blue-eyed lady. Could they have changed places, he would have married Cherrie off-hand, and never given one sigh to Nathalie. It was the prospective fortune of that young lady he was in love with.
"Cherrie, you don't believe me," he said, seeing incredulity in her face, "but I swear I am telling the truth. Let me prove it – give up Charley Marsh and marry me!"
"Captain!"
"I mean it! Which of us do you like best – Marsh or I?"
"You know well enough," said Cherrie, crying. "I like you ever so much the best; but when I heard you asking Miss Natty, I – I – " here the voice broke down in good earnest, and Cherrie's tears began to flow.
Captain Cavendish looked hurriedly about him. The last rays of the sunset had burned themselves out, and the moon was making for herself a track of silver sheen over the sea. The crowd were flocking homeward, tired out, and there was no one near; but in the distance his eagle eye saw Charley Marsh striding over the dewy evening grass. Poor Charley! The captain drew Cherrie's arm inside his own, and walked her rapidly away. They were out on the Redmon road before either spoke again.
"I did not mean one word of what I said to Miss Marsh. But I'll tell you a secret, Cherrie, if you'll never mention it again."
"I won't," said Cherrie. "What is it?"
"I should like to share her fortune – that is, you and I – and if she thinks I am in love with her, I stand a good chance. I should like to be richer than I am, for your sake, you know; so you must not be jealous. I don't care a straw for her, but for her money."
"And you do care for me?"
"You know I do! Are you ready to give up Charley, and marry me?"
"Oh!" said Cherrie, and it was all she replied; but it was uttered so rapturously that it perfectly satisfied him.
"Then that is settled? Let me see – suppose we get married next week, or the week after?"
"Oh! Captain!" cried the enraptured Cherrie.
"Then that is settled too. What a little darling you are, Cherrie! And now I have only one request to make of you – that you will not breathe one word of this to a living soul. Not a syllable – do you understand?"
"Why? said Cherrie, a little disappointed.
"My dear girl, it would ruin us both! We will be married privately – no one shall know it but the clergyman and – Mr. Blake."
"Mr. Blake? Val?"
"Yes," said Captain Cavendish, gravely, "he shall be present at the ceremony, but not another being in Speckport must find it out. If they do, Cherrie, I will have to leave you forever. There are many reasons for this that I cannot now explain. You will continue to live at home, and no one but ourselves shall be the wiser. There, don't look so disappointed; it won't last long, my darling. Let Charley still think himself your lover; but, mind you, keep him at a respectful distance, Cherrie."
They reached the cottage at last, but it took them a very long time. Captain Cavendish walked back to Speckport in the moonlight, smoking, and with an odd little smile on his handsome face.
"I'll do it, too," he said, glancing up at the moon, as if informing that luminary in confidence. "There's a law against bigamy, I believe; but I'll marry them both, the maid first, the mistress afterward."
CHAPTER XI.
HOW CAPTAIN CAVENDISH MEANT TO MARRY CHERRIE
The clerk of the weather in Speckport might have been a woman, so fickle and changeable in his mind was he. You never could put any trust in him; if you did, you were sure to be taken in. A bleak, raw, cheerless, gloomy morning, making parlor fires pleasant in spite of its being July, and hot coffee as delicious a beverage as cool soda-water had been the day before; a morning not at all suited for constitutionals; yet on this cold, wet, raw, foggy morning Charley Marsh had arisen at five o'clock, and gone off for a walk, and was only opening the front-door of the little cottage as the clock on the sitting-room mantel was chiming nine. Breakfast was over, and there was no one in the room but Mrs. Marsh, in her shawl and rocker, beside the fire which was burning in the Franklin, immersed ten fathoms deep in the adventures of a gentleman, inclosed between two yellow covers, and bearing the euphonious name of "Rinaldo Rinaldi." Miss Rose had gone to school, Betsy Ann was clattering among the pots in the kitchen; the breakfast-table looked sloppy and littered; the room, altogether dreary. Perhaps it was his walk in that cheerless fog, but Charley looked as dreary as the room; his bright face haggard and pale, his eyes heavy, and with dark circles under them, bespeaking a sleepless night. Mrs. Marsh dropped "Rinaldo Rinaldi," and looked up with a fretful air.
"Dear me, Charley, how late you are! What will Doctor Leach say? Where have you been?"
"Out for a walk."
"Such a hateful morning – it's enough to give you your death! Betsy Ann, bring in the coffee-pot!"
Betsy Ann appeared with that household god, and a face shining with smiles and yellow soap, and her mistress relapsed into "Rinaldo Rinaldi" again. Charley seemed to have lost his appetite as well as his spirits. He drank a cup of coffee, pushed the bread and butter