Shortly after they left, the jail warden was elected sheriff, and moved his goods and family to the county seat, the small town where we lived. The daughter, now about seventeen, was welcomed in the best society of the place. I saw her often; and the more I learned of her beautiful mind, the more I deplored Dunbar's unfortunate infatuation, and felt that a lesser girl would have answered the purpose. But now I know that a lesser girl could not have reached him. He needed a star of the first magnitude.
In two years Lance was back, a passed midshipman, waiting for his commission as ensign and an assignment to a ship. Dunbar did not appear, and I wondered if the connection was broken; but was relieved on this point by a letter from my relative, which apprised me that Dunbar had quit him to ship second mate with another skipper; and on comparing dates I found that this was simultaneous with the return of Lance, though Dunbar was in San Francisco at the time. But there seemed to be other influences entering into the environment of Lance. He met Miss Ella Madison, the daughter of the Sheriff. Now, while the best society of the small town had welcomed this splendid girl, Lance, invested with wealth and the aroma of a commission, was not affected by the general estimate. To him she was a find, a pretty girl to flirt with. I saw them together very often, but never arrived at a conception of his attitude until he expounded his philosophy of life in answer to a query of mine—a quest born of my interest in Dunbar.
"Are you to be married?" I asked.
"Married? No. I don't believe in marriage. I consider marriage, the linking of two human beings together, to be a crime worse than the tying of a dog and cat together by a rope and turning them adrift to fight it out. Marriage, Doctor? Why, marriage is an institution of human society worse than slavery—responsible for more crime, sin, sorrow, suffering, and murder than anything that ever afflicted the human race."
"Well," I answered, somewhat amazed, "what will you substitute for marriage, admitting that what you say may be true?"
"Association of two who love, until each is tired of the association, then separation."
"And do you apply such a code to your interest in Miss Madison?"
"Of course; but she's old-fashioned in her notions. Likes to be loved, but wants to be married. She resists my philosophy."
"She's right, you young scoundrel," I said. "Get out of my office."
My anger, of course, has no place in this story, and I soon forgot it, trusting in the girl's nobility of soul; and a letter from Dunbar, the first he had written, roused my hopes that there might soon be an antidote for Lance. It was a long communication, written from Liverpool, which apprised me that he had obtained a first mate's license and was in a fair way soon to obtain command; but the diction and style of that letter surprised me. With all my acquirements, coming of a university education and a daily correspondence with educated people, I could not have edited that letter. It was a masterpiece of English, and I answered it, giving him the news of Miss Madison that he asked for, and advising him to appear.