"Then I suppose we've no further use for each other?" moaned Jenny.

"Eh?" said Lovibond.

"Tut!" said Jenny, and she swung aside.

"Mona, sweet Mona, I love but thee, sweet Mona.'

"There's only one thing I regret," said Lovibond, inclining his head toward Jenny's averted face.

"And pray, what's that?" said Jenny, without turning about.

"Didn't I tell you that Capt'n Davy had taken two berths in the Pacific steamer to the west coast?" said Lovibond.

"Well?" said Jenny.

"That's ninety pounds wasted," said Lovibond.

"_What_ a pity!" sighed Jenny.

"Isn't it?" said Lovibond--his left hand was fumbling for her right.

"If she were any other woman, she might be glad to go still," said Jenny.

"And if he were any other man he would be proud to take her," said Lovibond.

"Some woman without kith or kin to miss her--" began Jenny.

"Yes, or some man without anybody in the world--" began Lovibond.

"Now, if it had been _my_ case--" said Jenny, wearily.

"Or mine," said Lovibond, sadly.

Each drew a long breath.

"Do you know, if I disappeared tonight, there's not a soul--" said Jenny, sorrowfully.

"That's just my case, too," interrupted Lovibond.

"Ah!" they said together.

They looked into each other's eyes with a mournful expression, and sighed again. Also their hands touched as their arms hung by their sides.

"Ninety pounds! Did you say ninety? Two berths?" said Jenny. "What a shocking waste! Couldn't somebody else use them?"

"Just what I was thinking," said Lovibond; and he linked the lady's arm through his own.

"Hadn't you better get the tickets from Capt'n Davy, and--and give them to somebody before it is too late?" said Jenny.

"I've got them already--his boy Quarrie was keeping them," said Lovibond.

"How thoughtful of you, Jona--I mean, Mr. Lovi--"

"Je--Jen--"

"Ben-my-chree! Sweet Ben-my-chree, I love but thee--"

"O, Jonathan!" whispered Jenny.

"O, Jenny!" gasped Jonathan.

They were on the dark side of the round house; the band was playing behind them, the sea was rumbling in front; there was a shuffle of feet, a sudden rustle of a dress; the lady glanced to the right, the gentleman looked to the left, and then for a fraction of an instant they were locked in each other's arms.

"Will you go back with me, Jenny?"

"Well," whispered Jenny. "Just to keep the tickets from wasting--"

"Just that," whispered Lovibond.

Three quarters of an hour later they were sailing out of Douglas harbor on board the Irish packet that was to overtake the Pacific steamship next morning at Belfast. The lights of Castle Mona lay low on the water's edge, and from the iron pier as they pa.s.sed came the faint sound of the music of the band:

"Mona, sweet Mona, Fairest isle beneath the sky, Mona, sweet Mona, We bid thee now good-by."

CHAPTER X.

The life that Davy had led that day-was infernal At the first shaft of Lovi-bond's insinuation against Mrs. Quiggin's fidelity he had turned sick at heart. "When he said it," Davy had thought, "the blood went from me like the tide out of the Ragged Mouth, where the ships lie wrecked and rotten."

He had baffled with his bemuddled brain, to recall the conversation he had held with his wife since his return home to marry her, and every innocent word she had uttered in jest had seemed guilty and foul.

"You've been nothing but a fool, Davy," he told himself. "You've been tooken in."

Then he had reproached himself for his hasty judgment. "Hould hard, boy, hould hard; aisy for all, though, aisy, aisy!" He had remembered how modest his wife had been in the old days--how simple and how natural.

"She was as pure as the mountain turf," he had thought, "and quiet extraordinary." Yet there was the ugly fact that she had appointed to meet a strange man in the gardens of Castle Mona, that night, alone.

"Some charm is put on her--some charm or the like," he had thought again.

That had been the utmost and best he could make of it, and he had suffered the torments of the d.a.m.ned. During the earlier part of the day he had rambled through the town, drinking freely, and his face had been a piteous sight to see. Toward nightfall he had drifted past Castle Mona toward Onchan Head, and stretched himself on the beach before Derby Castle. There he had reviewed the case afresh, and asked himself what he ought to do.

"It's not for me to go sneaking after her," he had thought. "She's true, I'll swear to it. The man's lying... Very well, then, Davy, boy, don't you take rest till you're proving it."

The autumn day had begun to close in, and the first stars to come out.

"Other women are like yonder," he had thought; "just common stars in the sky, where there's millions and millions of them. But Nelly is like the moon--the moon, bless her--"

At that thought Davy had leaped to his feet, in disgust of his own simplicity. "I'm a fool," he had muttered, "a reg'lar ould bleating billygoat; talking pieces of poethry to myself, like a stupid, gawky Tommy Big Eyes."

He had looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eight o'clock.

Unconsciously he had begun to walk toward Castle Mona. "I'm not for mis...o...b..ing my wife, not me; but then a man may be over certain. I'll find out for myself; and if it's true, if she's there, if she meets him.... Well, well, be aisy for all, Davy; be aisy, boy, be aisy! If the worst comes to the worst, and you've got to cut your stick, you'll be doing it without a heart-ache anyway. She'll not be worth it, and you'll be selling yourself to the Divil with a clane conscience. So it's all serene either way, Davy, my man, and here goes for it."