Captain, who, she was certain, had forbidden his wife to have
anything to do with the town's-people.






CHAPTER II.





One day, nearly two years after the birth of this second child, the
quiet town of S----was aroused from its dreams by a strange and
startling event. About a week before, a handsomely dressed man, with
the air of a foreigner, alighted from the stage coach at the "White
Swan," and asked if he could have a room. A traveler of such
apparent distinction was a rare event in S----; and as he suggested
the probable stay of a week or so, he became an object of immediate
attention, as well as curiosity.

Night had closed in when he arrived, and as he was fatigued by his
journey in the old lumbering stage coach that ran between the
nearest sea-port town and S----, he did not show himself again that
evening to the curious people who were to be found idling about the
"White Swan." But he had a talk with the landlord. That functionary
waited upon him to know his pleasure as to supper.