"Yes," she said. "Is that all?"
"My dear young lady," said the captain, "why distress yourself needlessly? Can you deem me so base, so dishonorable, as to be capable of repeating anything I may have heard? No," and he laid his hand upon his breast, and turned his face, with a hurt expression on it. "No, I am incapable of such measures toward any one, least of all to the daughter of my old friend, John Mildmay."
Violet's eyes moistened, and the captain, taking advantage of her weakness, instantly added:
"But, my dear Violet—if you will permit me to call you so—why distress yourself at all? Nothing is so bad but it can be mended. Lovers' quarrels are proverbially bitter only to turn sweet."
"Lovers' quarrels?" interrupted Violet, bitterly. "Do you think it was only that? Oh," she continued, eagerly, "if I could but believe that he did not mean or think all he said! If I could persuade myself that he did not scorn and despise me!"
"Tush! tush!" said the captain, with a gentle smile. "Leicester scorn, despise you? My dear young lady, he loves the very ground upon which you tread! Despise? He worships you!"
"No, no! He hates me!" said Violet, hiding her face. "He has started for—Africa," here she broke down, and sobbed aloud. "Gone—gone, thinking me all that he called me—heartless, vain, wicked—oh, so wicked!"
"Hush! hush!" said the captain, dreading that the girl's unusual excitement would result in a fit of hysterics, which would prove eminently inconvenient to him. "Hush, my dear girl; he has not gone. I saw him climbing the cliffs just now, looking as miserable as a starved jackal. There, let me go and fetch him back—you will thank me afterward; but you will hate yourself—and me, also—if you allow him to go. Africa is a fearful place."
Violet looked up suddenly.
"Yes, yes," she said, "I am a weak, foolish girl, but at least I would not have him go without hearing what I have to say. He—he may, perhaps, think less cruelly of me."