The Marquis's belongings were sent after him to the schooner, where, however, it appeared that they had not been expected, for it was some time before Jesse could obtain an answer to his hail from the shore, and still longer before he could make the men on the ship understand what it was he wanted with them. Eventually Captain Bonhomme had rowed ashore, and the Marquis's bags, boxes, writing-desk, and fiddle were loaded into the small boat and taken off to The Southern Cross.

It appeared from Jesse's report that the Captain had been sufficiently polite, and had attributed the misunderstanding of his men to their inability to speak English. They had not gotten their orders for the Marquis. He had asked no further questions about Monsieur de Boisdhyver or about his recent prisoners, but had feed Jesse liberally, and dismissed him, with his own and the Marquis's thanks.

"Well," said Tom, who had returned an hour before and had been exchanging experiences with Dan, "that seems to be the end of him for the present. I don't know that I did right in promising your French lady that I should release him, but there seemed no other way to make sure of getting you back."

"I am glad you promised," replied Dan. "It is a relief not to have him under our roof. For the last week I've felt as if the place were haunted by an evil spirit."

"So it has been, and so it still will be, I am afraid," was Tom's reply. "If there is treasure here, you may be sure that gang won't sail away without making a desperate effort to get it. I move that we beat them out by hunting for it ourselves. Why not begin to-night?"

"Not to-night," protested Dan. "I am tired to death. You can imagine that I didn't get much sleep cooped up on that confounded ship."

"No more have I, old boy. But I believe in striking while the iron is hot. Every day's delay gives them a better chance for their plans, if they mean to attack the Inn."

"I doubt if they'll do that. I don't think force is precisely their line. You know, I believe that the story Madame de la Fontaine told isn't altogether a fiction."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Tom. "I don't believe a word of it. Naturally they wouldn't use force, if they could help it. But their plans have all been upset, and a gang like that won't stop at anything."

"But we live in a civilized community, my boy. This isn't the middle ages."

"We live in a civilized community, perhaps; but if you can find a more isolated spot, a place more remote from help, in any other part of the civilized world, I'd be glad to see it. We might as well be in the middle of the Sahara desert. Find the treasure and get it out of harm's way—that's my idea."

"All right, but to-morrow; I swear I'm not up to it to-night."

"To-morrow! Well, then to-morrow. Though for the life of me, I don't see why you want to delay things. Jesse and Ezra can keep watch tonight."

"But we must get some sleep, Tom."

"The devil with sleep! However, you're the boss now. It's your inn, your treasure, your sister, that are involved. I'll take a back seat."

"Come, come, Tom—don't let's quarrel. Give me to-night to—to get myself together, and tomorrow I'll pull the Inn down with you, if you wish."

Perhaps Dan was right, he did need rest and sleep and a few hours would restore him. They had their supper, then, apportioned the night into watches, and Dan went upstairs for his first period of sleep.

His brain was a-whirl. All through the afternoon, during his talk with the Marquis, and later during his talk with Tom, one idea had been dominating his thought, dictating his plan of action, colouring his judgment. The fascination which Madame de la Fontaine exerted over his senses was too strong for him even to contemplate resisting it. She was confessedly in league with a gang of adventurers upon a quest for treasure. She had lied to him at first about the Marquis, she had lied to him about Nancy, she had lied to him about his release; and when she had left him under the pretext of arranging his return to the Inn, she had in fact gone to Tom to bargain an exchange of him for the old Marquis. Her lies, her subterfuges, her flatteries, had been evidently designed but to get possession of the torn scrap of paper which was so necessary to their finding the hidden treasure. All this Dan told himself a hundred times, and then, quickly dispelling the witness of these cold hard facts, there would flash before him the vision of her wonderful eyes, of her strange appealing beauty, of her stirring personality; he would feel once more the touch of her cheek and her lips pressing his, intoxicating as wine; and delicious fires flamed through his veins, and set his heart to beating, and made havoc of his honour and his conscience. Whatever were the consequences, he would meet her again that night as he had promised. It was his first experience of passion and it was sweeping him off his feet.

Alone in his room Dan sat down at the table. He drew from his pocket the torn paper, and as an act of justice to the friends he felt that he was about to betray, he labourously made a copy of the difficult French handwriting. This done, he locked the copy in his strong box and put the original back in his pocket. Then, like the criminal he thought himself to be, he crept cautiously down the stairs. The door into the bar was open, and he stood for a moment, shoes in hand, peering into the dimly-lit room. Tom sat by the hearth, reading, a pipe in his mouth and a cocked pistol on the table by his side. A pang went through Dan's breast, but he checked the impulse to speak, and stole softly across the hall and into his mother's parlour. Ever so cautiously he closed the door behind him, crossed the room, and raised the sash of one of the windows.

It was dark, but starlight; the moon had not yet risen. In a moment he had slipped over the sill and stood upon the porch. Lowering the sash, he crept across the band of light that shone from the windows of the bar, and into the shadow of the Red Oak. There he buttoned his great coat tightly about him, put on his shoes, and started softly down the avenue of maples. Scarcely a sound disturbed the silence of the night, save the lazy creaking of the windmill as it turned now and then to the puff of a gentle breeze.

At every few steps, he paused to listen, fearful lest his absence had been detected and he were followed by some one from the Inn. Then he would start on again, peering eagerly into the darkness ahead for any sign of her whom he sought. At last he reached the end of the avenue. His heart was beating wildly, in a very terror that she might not come. Nothing—no catastrophe, no danger, no disgrace,—could be so terrible to him as that the woman he loved so recklessly and madly should not come. She must not fail! He looked at his watch; it was already three minutes past ten. If in five—then minutes she did not come, he would go to seek her—to the House on the Dunes, aye, if must be to The Southern Cross itself.

Suddenly a dark figure slipped out of the gloom, and Claire de la Fontaine was in his arms. For a moment she let him clasp her, let his lips again meet hers; then quickly she disengaged herself. "Are we safe?" she asked in a whisper. "Is it that we can talk here."

"We are perfectly safe," he answered. "Nothing can be heard from the Inn. No one is about."

"You escaped without notice? Are you certain that no one follows you?"

"Absolutely. I am sure. And you?"

"I?—Oh, no, no—. There is no one to question me. I have been at the House on the Dunes all the evening. Marie, my maid,—she thinks that I am gone to the schooner. Mon Dieu! cher ami, what terrors I have suffered for you. It had not seemed possible that Claire de la Fontaine would ride and walk two so long miles in a desolate country to meet a lover—It must be that we are gone mad."

"Madness then is the sweetest experience of life," said Dan, seizing her hand again and carrying it to his lips.

"Ah peut-etre, mon ami. But now there are many affairs to discuss. Tell me—the Marquis, he was released, as your friend has promised me he should be?"

"Of course, didn't you know it?"

"I know nothing. Why then is it he has not left the Inn?"

"But he did leave—in the middle of the afternoon, half an hour after I returned."

"And where is it that he has gone?"

"To the schooner, I suppose. He left alone, giving directions for his things to be sent after him."

"Ah! to the schooner, you say? You are certain?"

"Yes—that is, I think he went there. Jesse took his boxes and bags down to the shore, and Captain Bonhomme received them, and thanked him in the Marquis's name,''

"Mais non! Est-ce possible?" For a moment she was silent, considering deeply. "Bien!" she exclaimed presently. "It is as you say, of course. And you, my friend?" She stopped suddenly, for they had been walking slowly forward, and withdrawing her hand from his arm, she held it out before him. "The paper?" she demanded.

"Here it is," murmured Dan, fumbling in his pocket, and pulling out the scrap of paper. She took it eagerly from his hand and held it up before her eyes as though trying to see it in the dark.

"This is it, really?" she asked.

"I swear it," he answered. "It is the piece of writing that I found in the hidden cubby-hole of the old cabinet in the Oak Parlour. It is written in French, you know."

"Yes, I know, I know," she assented absently. For a moment she was quite still, and then, with a strange exclamation, she put the paper to her lips. "Quels souvenirs, d'autrefois!" she murmured. "Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!"

"Dearest, what is it?" asked Dan.

"Nothing, nothing," she replied, withdrawing a little from his touch. "I was unwell for the moment,—ce ne fait rien. No, no, you are not to kiss me, please." Again she unloosed his arm from about her neck, slipped the paper into her muff, and pressed a little forward. For a space they walked slowly, silently, toward the Inn.

"But, dearest one," murmured Dan, "this proves to you my love, doesn't it? You no longer doubt me. For your sake, I give my honour; it may be, the safety of my friends. You must see how I love you with all my heart and soul. Won't you,—"

Suddenly she stopped again quite still and faced him. "My poor boy," she said gently, "you really love me?"

"Love you! My God, have I not proved it! What more would you have me do?"

"Mais oui," she answered quickly. "You have proved it, but I have thought that it was not possible."

"And you—you do care—oh, tell me—"

"HÉlas, mon paurve ami. I love as tenderly as it remains in me to love. Ah, dear, dear boy, so sincerely, that I cannot have you to sell your honour for the futile kisses of Claire de la Fontaine."

"What do you mean? Have I—"

"No, no, no! This—take the paper. You must not again give it me, I desire that you will not." She drew the paper from her muff with an impulsive movement and thrust it toward him. "Take it, I implore you."

"But why—?"

"Because that you shall not give your honour to a woman such as I am. Mai vraiment, I love you. That is why you must take back the paper."

"But you must explain—"

"Mon Dieu! is it that I have not explained? There is time for nothing more. I have fear, mon ami; a kiss, and it is necessary that I go. It is good-bye."

"But you love me, you have said so. I cannot, I will not let you go."

"Listen to me, my friend," she said, her voice rising for the moment above the whisper in which she had cautiously spoken heretofore. "From the first I have deceived you, betrayed you, played upon your affection but to betray you afresh. And now I find that I love you. I am not that which you call good, but it is impossible that I injure you. Go back to your friends."

"Never! I love you. What matters now anything that you have said or done? And you love me. Ah dearest one, what can that mean but good?"

"Bien-aimÉ, what will you that I say?" she interrupted speaking rapidly, "I am what you Americans call 'a bad woman',—the sort of woman that you know nothing of. I was the woman who sixteen years ago stayed at the Inn at the Red Oak with FranÇois de Boisdhyver, the woman your mother called nurse, who cared for his little daughter. And now I have told you all. Will you know from now that I am a thousand times unworthy? Pour l'amour de Dieu, give it to me to do this one act of honour and of generosity."