The transferment of the guardianship of Carlita from Mrs. Chalmers to Pierrepont was not a difficult thing, and he lost no time in making the application for it.
Nor was there loss of time in the matter of their marriage.
She had no friends whatever in that section of country, and so they were married quietly with only Dudley Maltby as best man and Ahbel and Stolliker as witnesses, and left, while April was yet in its infancy, for a long cruise upon the "Eolus," accompanied only by Ahbel and Leith's valet, besides the crew.
Carlita is a great favorite with the men, one reason being, perhaps, that she divided five thousand dollars between the two who brought Leith and his little half-dead burden safely back to her when death was threatening both.
The child did not die, nor yet did the mother in whose interests he had received his wetting, but there is a man upon the "Eolus" who would sacrifice his life at any time for its owner, who risked his own for a crippled boy.
They are very happy. So happy that a little anxious cloud gathered between Carlita's brows as she lay in her favorite nook upon the deck, her couch being the one she had used upon the day of that momentous little cruise that occupied less than one brief day, and yet seemed to have turned the current of all her life.
"What is it, sweetheart?" Leith asked, no shade of expression upon that lovely face lost to him.
"I was only thinking of the old days," she answered, looking up in his face with a devotion that would have banished the most unhappy memories. "Of some words my mother spoke to me before she died, of a curse—"
"A curse!" interrupted Leith, lightly. "How very romantic! Do let us hear all about it."