N., and his wife are not such distinguished
personages, but their romance had a sequel worthy of its unusual
beginning. They were married quietly a week after the _Kansas_ reached
London. There was some war scare in full blast at the moment, and a
Lord of the Admiralty who deigned to read the newspapers thought it was
a pity that a smart sailor should not risk his life for his country
rather than in behalf of base commerce. So he looked up Courtenay's
record, and found that it was excellent, the young lieutenant's reason
for resigning his commission being the necessity of supporting his
mother when her estate was swept away by a bank failure. The Sea Lords
made him a first-rate offer of reinstatement in the service, at a
higher rank, without any loss of seniority, and they went about the
business with such dignified leisure that Dr. Christobal had time to
find out, through men whom he could trust, that Elsie's small estate in
Chile contained one of the richest mines in the country. He secured a
bid of many thousands of pounds for it, and advised Mrs. Courtenay to
accept half in cash and half in shares of the exploiting company.
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