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“Upon my word,” cried Mary Phillips, “those were the messages I sent. I remember particularly the one about the last one back and the heartiest welcome.”

“Confound that Stearns!” cried Captain Guy; “what did he mean by giving all his attention to you, and none to the lady that he was sent for to see?”

“Good bye, Mrs. Chesters,” I said, taking her by the hand. “I can never thank you enough for what you have done for her and for me. But how you could leave her I really do not understand.”

“Well,” said Mary, coloring a little, “I can scarcely understand it myself; but that man would have it so, and he’s terribly obstinate. But I don’t feel that I’ve left her. She’s in the best of hands, and I see her nearly every day. Here’s her address, and when you meet her, Mr. Rockwell, you’ll find that in every way I’ve told you truly.” I took a hearty leave of Captain Guy, shook Mary by the hand once more, rushed down stairs, roused the sleeping cabby, and glancing at the card, ordered him to gallop to 9 Ravisdock Terrace, Parmley Square.

I do not know how I got into the house, what I said nor what I asked, nor whether the family had had their breakfast or not; but the moment my eyes fell upon my beloved Bertha I knew that in everything Mary Phillips had told me truly. She came into the room with beaming eyes and both hands extended. With outstretched arms I rushed to meet her, and folded her to my breast. This time there was no one to object. For some moments we were speechless with joyful emotion, but there was no need of our saying anything, no need of statements nor explanations. Mary Phillips had attended to all that.

When we had cooled down to the point of speech, I was surprised to find that I had been expected, that Bertha knew I was coming. When Mary Phillips had left me that morning to prepare my breakfast, she had sent a message to Bertha, and then she had detained me until she thought it had been received and Bertha was prepared to meet me.

“I did not want any slips or misses,” she said, when she explained the matter to me afterward. “I don’t want to say anything about your personal appearance, Mr. Rockwell, but there are plenty of servants in London who, if they hadn’t had their orders, would shut the door in the face of a much less wild-eyed person than you were, sir, that morning.”

Bertha and I were married in London, and two weeks afterward we returned to America in the new ship Glaucus, commanded by Captain Guy Chesters and his wife.

Our marriage in England instead of America was largely due to the influence of Mary Phillips, who thought it would be much safer and more prudent for us to be married before we again undertook the risks of a sea-voyage.

“Nobody knows what may happen on the ocean,” she said; “but if you’re once fairly married, that much is accomplished, anyway.”

Our choice of a sailing-vessel in which to make the passage was due in a great part to our desire to keep company as long as possible with Captain Chesters and his wife, to whom we truly believed we owed each other.

When we reached New York, and Bertha and I were about to start for the Catskill Mountains, where we proposed to spend the rest of the summer, we took leave of Captain Guy and his wife with warmest expressions of friendship, with plans for meeting again.

Everything seemed to have turned out in the best possible way.

We had each other, and Mary Phillips had some one to manage.

We should have been grieved if we had been obliged to leave her without occupation.

At the moment of parting I drew her aside. “Mary,” I said, “we have had some strange experiences together, and I shall never forget them.”

“Nor shall I, sir,” she answered. “Some of them were so harrowing and close-shaved, and such heart-breaking disappointments I never had. The worst of all was when you threw that rope clean over our ship without holding on to your end of it. I had been dead sure that the rope was going to bring us all together.”

“That was a terrible mishap,” I answered; “what did Bertha think of it?”

“Bless my soul!” ejaculated Mary Phillips; “she wasn’t on deck, and she never knew anything about it. When I am nursing up a love match I don’t mention that sort of thing.”