"And you can marry me on Thursday instead of Ethel!" exclaimed the happy lover in a burst of hopeful confidence.
"Oh, Arthur, you take one's breath away with your hasty plans!" laughed Precious, while her mother clasped her tighter, as though this bold lover were going to kidnap Precious at that very moment.
But Arthur persisted:
"My passage and Ethel's are taken on the steamer for Thursday, and my father expects me. He is old and weak, and I do not like to disappoint him. Precious and I are very much in love with each other, and we have still two days to court in, so why should we not carry out the original programme, with the one exception of changed brides? It would make me very happy."
Mrs. Winans and Precious offered quick demurrers, but to their surprise Senator Winans joined forces with Arthur, and declared that the plan would please him, as it would show the world that one of his daughters had a true, womanly heart, although the other's was incased in a steel armor of pride, vanity and ambition.
Senator Winans usually carried his point, and his wife and daughter soon came round to his opinion. Finally the parents sent the young people off to bill and coo, while they talked matters over and decided how best to smooth over the whole affair to the world.
They had to bring in Earle, too, and intrust him with the task of breaking to his bonny bride the news of the letter from the sea with the certainty of her father's fate.
But the news of Bruce Conway's loss at sea scarcely surprised Earle so much as that of Ethel's strange conduct. Like his father, he was very angry.
"I can scarcely realize it," he exclaimed; "I could have sworn that her love was as strong as her life. Why, she seemed to worship Arthur!"
"It was only his title she worshiped," Ethel's father replied angrily, and Earle rejoiced with him that Precious would make up to Arthur for Ethel's defection.