Inline HTML link and mailto: link

[R (Chandra) Chandrasekhar]

Dear Folks,

I am just starting out with Markdown and am trying to get two elements 
working:

(1) An inline HTML link; and

(2) An inline mailto: link

as shown in the text below:

We invite you to [browse] (http://academy.swanlotus.com/index.html) this 
website. Take a look and see if you find anything useful. And do [drop 
us a line] (mailto:feedback at swanlotus.com) with your comments for 
improvement.

I tried it out on Dingus and failed to get the expected HTML version like:

We invite you to <a 
href="http://academy.swanlotus.com/index.html">browse</a> this website. 
Take a look and see if you find anything useful. And do <a 
href="mailto:feedback at swanlotus.com">drop us a line</a> with your 
comments for improvement.

Instead, Dingus gave me:

We invite you to [browse] (http://academy.swanlotus.com/index.html) this 
website. Take a look and see if you find anything useful. And do [drop 
us a line] (mailto:feedback at swanlotus.com) with your comments for 
improvement.

This is my first experience with Markdown, although I am conversant with 
HTML and very conversant with LaTeX.

What am I doing wrong and why am I not getting the expected HTML markup?

FYI, I am on Kubuntu 11.10 using Markdown, version 1.0.1 from the 
standard .deb package.

Thanks in advance.

Chandra