"Yours—not mine; and as to 'the people,' they may think precisely what they please, my dear Rookleigh."
"And what shall I tell mother is your reason?" asked Rookleigh, who, to do him justice, was ignorant of much that Derval knew.
"Say it is my desire that she should forget her dear and amiable cousin, Reeve Rudderhead, and all connected with him, especially their epistolary correspondence," was the—to Rookleigh—enigmatical, yet bitter reply of Derval.
Save the surrounding hills and woods, he found all the once secluded localities of his childhood so changed by the erection of marine villas, terraces, and formal promenades, that he would soon—in disgust—have gone back to London, but for certain influences that came to bear upon his actions.
Derval fell in love!
CHAPTER IV.
"THE DESIRE OF THE MOTH FOR THE STAR."
"I have never been so far out from the Marine Parade before—so far out at sea, I mean."
"But you are not uneasy—alarmed?" asked the young man, with great tenderness of manner.
"Oh, no; am I not with you?" answered the girl sweetly and simply, as she drew off a glove and let the water slip through her slender white fingers, as the boat, urged by the powerful hands and arms of a handsome and sunburnt young fellow of twenty-two or thereabout, clad in a white flannel boating costume, with canvas shoes and a straw hat, shot through the water of the bay in view of Finglecombe.