Come, come, my dear girl! if there is somebody else in the background, whose advice you prefer to mine--" "You see that I am alone," she interposed, proudly.

"If you knew me better, you would know that I depend on nobody but myself." Those words decided the only doubt which now remained in the captain's mind--the doubt whether the course was clear before him.

The motive of her flight from home was evidently what the handbills assumed it to be--a reckless fancy for going on the stage.

"One of two things," thought Wragge to himself, in his logical way.

"She's worth more than fifty pounds to me in her present situation, or she isn't.