"Oh, I'll let him, all he'll tell me. What did he say?"
"He said the very best was, that under all your mantle of new charms——"
Ramsey's soft laugh interrupted. "He didn't. He never said that, my lady. He wouldn't know how. You said it."
"Well, he did say that under it all there's nothing lost of the Ramsey we began with."
"The slanderer!" They laughed together. The calls of the lead were passing unnoticed. "Mark above water, twain; mark, twain; quarter less, twain; half, twain; nine and a half; by the mark, nine; nine feet."
"The slanderer! Why, that's actionable! I'll have the law on him!" The speaker's mirth was overdone. As the leadsman sang another cry and Hugh sedately spoke it she tinkled as of old and said: "Don't get excited, captain. Keep cool."
Mrs. Gilmore sobered. "You may laugh, but I believe he's talked with your father conclusively and will to you to-night, if you'll allow it."
"Humph! you don't know that he'll come near me. Aboard his own boat, on her trial trip, he's got other fish to fry. But even if he should, don't you see how absolute the deadlock is? Oh, you must have seen it these eight years and more!—in spite of everybody's silence."
"We didn't. We don't see it even now, Gilmore and I. We don't believe Captain Hugh sees any deadlock whatever. He merely knows you think you do. You think to accept him would condemn him to death?"
"Mrs. Gilmore, I know it would. My brothers—may have broken promises but they—keep—their—threats. You know that's the fashion of all this country, from Cairo down."