“Oh, Heaven! but the retort is natural. What will Colonel Compton think or say?”
“Refer Colonel Compton to me for an elucidation. I am always ready, Marguerite, to answer for my course of conduct, though I may seldom recognize the right of any man to question it.”
“I could even plead for an exception in favor of my little Nellie but that I know your inflexible will, Philip.”
“It is scarcely more so than your own; but now, do you forget that there is an answer to be written to Mrs. Houston?”
“Ah, yes,” said Marguerite, going to the escritoire that we have already named, and hastily writing a few words.
“Dearest Nellie:—I am not well and cannot go to you; waive ceremony, beloved, and come to your Marguerite.”
Meanwhile Mr. Helmstedt rang for Mrs. Houston’s messenger, who, he was informed, had gone down to the beach to assist Forrest in rigging the Nereide.
“We will walk down to the beach and send him home,” said Mr. Helmstedt, taking his straw hat and turning toward Marguerite. She arose to join him, and they walked out together across the front piazza, down the steps, and down the terraced garden, through the orchard and the timothy field, and, finally, to the sanded beach, where they found the two negroes rigging the boat.
“Mrs. Helmstedt will not go, Forrest, so that you may leave the bark. Lemuel, you will take this note to your mistress, and say that we shall be glad to see the family here.”
Marguerite had not been down on the sands since the stormy evening of her arrival, and now she noticed, with astonishment, that of all the little fleet of some half-dozen boats of all sizes that were usually moored within the boathouse but a single one, the little Nereide, remained; and she saw that drawn into the house, the door of which was chained and locked and the key delivered up to Mr. Helmstedt. When this was done and the men had gone, Marguerite turned to her husband for an explanation.