"
"Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain,
at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!"
She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and
steadily in the face.
"I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him."
Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified
by astonishment.
"Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again.
"I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and
the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered
her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing
stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had
been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner
than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer;
I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way
lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him."
"Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain,
slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her
face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?"
"As your niece, Miss Bygrave.
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