CHAPTER I

The Princess opened her eyes at the sound of her maid's approach. She turned her head impatiently toward the door.

"Annette," she said coldly, "did you misunderstand me? Did I not say that I was on no account to be disturbed this afternoon?"

Annette was the picture of despair. Eyebrows and hands betrayed alike both her agitation of mind and her nationality.

"Madame," she said, "did I not say so to monsieur? I begged him to call again. I told him that madame was lying down with a bad headache, and that it was as much as my place was worth to disturb her. What did he answer? Only this. That it would be as much as my place was worth if I did not come up and tell you that he was here to see you on a very urgent matter. Indeed, madame, he was very, very impatient with me."

"Of whom are you talking?" the Princess asked.

"But of Major Forrest, madame," Annette declared. "It is he who waits below."

The Princess closed her eyes for a moment and then slowly opened them. She stretched out her hand, and from a table by her side took up a small gilt mirror.

"Turn on the lights, Annette," she commanded.

The maid illuminated the darkened room. The Princess gazed at herself in the mirror, and reaching out again took a small powder-puff from its case and gently dabbed her face. Then she laid both mirror and powder-puff back in their places.

"You will tell monsieur," she said, "that I am very unwell indeed, but that since he is here and his business is urgent I will see him. Turn out the lights, Annette. I am not fit to be seen. And move my couch a little, so."

"Madame is only a little pale," the maid said reassuringly. "That makes nothing. These Englishwomen have all too much colour. I go to tell monsieur."

She disappeared, and the Princess lay still upon her couch, thinking. Soon she heard steps outside, and with a little sigh she turned her head toward the door. The man who entered was tall, and of the ordinary type of well-born Englishmen. He was carefully dressed, and his somewhat scanty hair was arranged to the best advantage. His features were hard and lifeless. His eyes were just a shade too close together. The maid ushered him in and withdrew at once.

"Come and sit by my side, Nigel, if you want to talk to me," the Princess said. "Walk softly, please. I really have a headache."

"No wonder, in this close room," the man muttered, a little ungraciously. "It smells as though you had been burning incense here."

"It suits me," the Princess answered calmly, "and it happens to be my room. Bring that chair up here and say what you have to say."

The man obeyed in silence. When he had made himself quite comfortable, he raised her hand, the one which was nearest to him, to his lips, and afterwards retained it in his own.

"Forgive me if I seem unsympathetic, Ena," he said. "The fact is, everything has been getting on my nerves for the last few days, and my luck seems dead out."

She looked at him curiously. She was past middle age, and her face showed signs of the wear and tear of life. But she still had fine eyes, and the rejuvenating arts of Bond Street had done their best for her.

"What is the matter, Nigel?" she asked. "Have the cards been going against you?"

He frowned and hesitated for a moment before replying.

"Ena," he said, "between us two there is an ancient bargain, and that is that we should tell the truth to one another. I will tell you what it is that is worrying me most. I have suspected it for some time, but this afternoon it was absolutely obvious. There is a sort of feeling at the club. I can't exactly describe it, but I am conscious of it directly I come into the room. For several days I have scarcely been able to get a rubber. This afternoon, when I cut in with Harewood and Mildmay and another fellow, two of them made some sort of an excuse and went off. I pretended not to notice it, of course, but there it was. The thing was apparent, and it is the very devil!"

Again she looked at him closely.

"There is nothing tangible?" she asked. "No complaint, or scandal, or anything of that sort?"

He rejected the suggestion with scorn.

"No!" he said. "I am not such an idiot as that. All the same there is the feeling. They don't care to play bridge with me. There is only young Engleton who takes my part, and so far as playing bridge for money is concerned, he would be worth the whole lot put together if only I could get him away from them—make up a little party somewhere, and have him to myself for a week or two."

The Princess was thoughtful.

"To go abroad at this time of the year," she remarked, "is almost impossible. Besides, you have only just come back."

"Absolutely impossible," he answered. "Besides, I shouldn't care to do it just now. It looks like running away. A week or so ago you were talking of taking a villa down the river. I wondered whether you had thought any more of it."

The Princess shook her head.

"I dare not," she answered. "I have gone already further than I meant to. This house and the servants and carriages are costing me a small fortune. I dare not even look at my bills. Another house is not to be thought of."

Major Forrest looked gloomily at the shining tip of his patent boot.

"It's jolly hard luck," he muttered. "A quiet place somewhere in the country, with Engleton and you and myself, and another one or two, and I should be able to pull through. As it is, I feel inclined to chuck it all."

The Princess looked at him curiously. He was certainly more than ordinarily pale, and the hand which rested upon the side of his chair was twitching a little nervously.

"My dear Nigel," she said, "do go to the chiffonier there and help yourself to a drink. I hate to see you white to the lips, and trembling as though death itself were at your elbow. Borrow a little false courage, if you lack the real thing."

The man obeyed her suggestion with scarcely a protest.

"I had hoped, Ena," he remarked a little peevishly, "to have found you more sympathetic."

"You are so sorry for yourself," she answered, "that you seem scarcely to need my sympathy. However, sit down and talk to me reasonably."

"I talk reasonably enough," he answered, "but I really am hard up against it. Don't think I have come begging. I know you've done all you can, and it's a matter with me now of more than a few hundreds. My only hope is Engleton. Can't you suggest anything?"

The Princess rested her head slightly upon the long slender fingers of her right hand. Bond Street had taken care of her complexion, but the veins in her hand were blue, and art had no means of concealing a certain sharpness of features and the thin lines about the eyes, nameless suggestions of middle age. Yet she was still a handsome woman. She knew how to dress, and how to make the best of herself. She had the foreigner's instinct for clothes, and her figure was still irreproachable. She sat and looked with a sort of calculating interest at the man who for years had come as near touching her heart as any of his sex. Curiously enough she knew that this new aspect in which he now presented himself, this incipient cowardice—the first-fruits of weakening nerves—did not and could not affect her feelings for him. She saw him now almost for the first time with the mask dropped, no longer cold, cynical and calculating, but a man moved to his shallow depths by what might well seem to him, a dweller in the narrow ways of life, as a tragedy. It looked at her out of his grey eyes. It showed itself in the twitching of his lips. For many years he had lived upon a little less than nothing a year. Now for the first time his means of livelihood were threatened. His long-suffering acquaintances had left him alone at the card-table.

"You disappoint me, Nigel," she said. "I hate to see a man weaken. There is nothing against you. Don't act as though there could be. As to this little house-party you were speaking of, I only wish I could think of something to help you. By the by, what are you doing to-night?"

"Nothing," he answered, "except that Engleton is expecting me to dine with him."

"I have an idea," the Princess said slowly. "It may not come to anything, but it is worth trying. Have you met my new admirer, Mr. Cecil de la Borne?"

Forrest shook his head.

"Do you mean a dandified-looking boy whom you were driving with in the Park yesterday?"

The Princess nodded.

"We met him a week or so ago," she answered, "and he has been very attentive. He has a country place down in Norfolk, which from his description is, I should think, like a castle in Hermitland. Jeanne and I are dining with him to-night at the Savoy. You and Engleton must come, too. I can arrange it. It is just possible that we may be able to manage something. He told me yesterday that he was going back to Norfolk very soon. I fancy that he has a brother who keeps rather a strict watch over him, and he is not allowed to stay up in town very long at a time."

"I know the name," Forrest remarked. "They are a very old Roman Catholic family. We'll come and dine, if you say that you can arrange it. But I don't see how we can all hope to get an invitation out of him on such a short acquaintance."

The Princess was looking thoughtful.

"Leave it to me," she said. "I have an idea. Be at the Savoy at a quarter past eight, and bring Lord Ronald."

Forrest took up his hat. He looked at the Princess with something very much like admiration in his face. For years he had dominated this woman. To-day, for the first time, she had had the upper hand.

"We will be there all right," he said. "Engleton will only be too glad to be where Jeanne is. I suppose young De la Borne is the same way."

The Princess sighed.

"Every one," she remarked, "is so shockingly mercenary!"

CHAPTER II

The Princess helped herself to a salted almond and took her first sip of champagne. The almonds were crisp and the champagne dry. She was wearing a new and most successful dinner-gown of black velvet, and she was quite sure that in the subdued light no one could tell that the pearls in the collar around her neck were imitation. Her afternoon's indisposition was quite forgotten. She nodded at her host approvingly.

"Cecil," she said, "it is really very good of you to take in my two friends like this. Major Forrest has just arrived from Ostend, and I was very anxious to hear about the people I know there, and the frocks, and all the rest of it. Lord Ronald always amuses me, too. I suppose most people would call him foolish, but to me he only seems very, very young."

The young man who was host raised his glass and bowed towards the Princess.

"I can assure you," he said, "that it has given me a great deal of pleasure to make the acquaintance of Major Forrest and Lord Ronald, but it has given me more pleasure still to be able to do anything for you. You know that."

She looked at him quickly, and down at her plate. Such glances had become almost a habit with her, but they were still effectual. Cecil de la Borne leaned across towards Forrest.

"I hear that you have been to Ostend lately, Major Forrest," he said. "I thought of going over myself a little later in the season for a few days."

"I wouldn't if I were you," Forrest answered. "It is overrun just now with the wrong sort of people. There is nothing to do but gamble, which doesn't interest me particularly; or dress in a ridiculous costume and paddle about in a few feet of water, which appeals to me even less."

"You were there a little early in the season," the Princess reminded him.

Major Forrest assented.

"A little later," he admitted, "it may be tolerable. On the whole, however, I was disappointed."

Lord Ronald spoke for the first time. He was very thin, very long, and very tall. He wore a somewhat unusually high collar, but he was very carefully, not to say exactly, dressed. His studs and links and waistcoat buttons were obviously fresh from the Rue de la Paix. The set of his tie was perfection. His features were not unintelligent, but his mouth was weak.

"One thing I noticed about Ostend," he remarked, "they charge you a frightful price for everything. We never got a glass of champagne there like this."

"I am glad you like it," their host said. "From what you say I don't imagine that I should care for Ostend. I am not rich enough to gamble, and as I have lived by the sea all my days, bathing does not attract me particularly. I think I shall stay at home."

"By the by, where is your home, Mr. De la Borne?" the Princess asked. "You told me once, but I have forgotten. Some of your English names are so queer that I cannot even pronounce them, much more remember them."

"I live in a very small village in Norfolk, called Salthouse," Cecil de la Borne answered. "It is quite close to a small market-town called Wells, if you know where that is. I don't suppose you do, though," he added. "It is an out-of-the-way corner of the world."

The Princess shook her head.

"I never heard of it," she said. "I am going to motor through Norfolk soon, though, and I think that I shall call upon you."

Cecil de la Borne looked up eagerly.

"I wish you would," he begged, "and bring your step-daughter. You can't imagine," he added, with a glance at the girl who was sitting at his left hand, "how much pleasure it would give me. The roads are really not bad, and every one admits that the country is delightful."

"You had better be careful," the Princess said, "or we may take you at your word. I warn you, though, that it would be a regular invasion. Major Forrest and Lord Ronald are talking about coming with us."

"It's just an idea," Forrest remarked carelessly. "I wouldn't mind it myself, but I don't fancy we should get Engleton away from town before Goodwood."

"Well, I like that," Engleton remarked. "Forrest's a lot keener on these social functions than I am. As a matter of fact I am for the tour, on one condition."

"And that?" the Princess asked.

"That you come in my car," Lord Ronald answered. "I haven't really had a chance to try it yet, but it's a sixty horse Mercedes, and it's fitted up for touring. Take the lot of us easy, luggage and everything."

"I think it would be perfectly delightful," the Princess declared. "Do you really mean it?"

"Of course I do," Lord Ronald answered. "It's too hot for town, and I'm rather great on rusticating, myself."

"I think this is charming," the Princess declared. "Here we have one of our friends with a car and another with a house. But seriously, Cecil, we mustn't think of coming to you. There would be too many of us."

"The more the better," Cecil said eagerly. "If you really want to attempt anything in the shape of a rest-cure, I can recommend my home thoroughly. I am afraid," he added, with a shrug of the shoulders, "that I cannot recommend it for anything else."

"A rest," the Princess declared, "is exactly what we want. Life here is becoming altogether too strenuous. We started the season a little early. I am perfectly certain that we could not possibly last till the end. Until I arrived in London with an heiress under my charge, I had no idea that I was such a popular person."

The girl who was sitting on the other side of their host spoke almost for the first time. She was evidently quite young, and her pale cheeks, dark full eyes, and occasional gestures, indicated clearly enough something foreign in her nationality. She addressed no one in particular, but she looked toward Forrest.

"That is one of the things," she said, "which puzzles me. I do not understand it at all. It seems as though every one is liked or disliked, here in London at any rate, according to the amount of money they have."

"Upon my word, Miss Jeanne, it isn't so with every one," Lord Ronald interposed hastily.

She glanced at him indifferently.

"There may be exceptions," she said. "I am speaking of the great number."

"For Heaven's sake, child, don't be cynical!" the Princess remarked. "There is no worse pose for a child of your age."

"It is not a pose at all," Jeanne answered calmly. "I do not want to be cynical, and I do not want to have unkind thoughts. But tell me, Lord Ronald, honestly, do you think that every one would have been as kind to a girl just out of boarding-school as they have been to me if it were not that I have so much money?"

"I cannot tell about others," Lord Ronald answered. "I can only answer for myself."

His last words were almost whispered in the girl's ears, but she only shrugged her shoulders and did not return his gaze. Their host, who had been watching them, frowned slightly. He was beginning to think that Engleton was scarcely as pleasant a fellow as he had thought him.

"Well," he said, "Miss Le Mesurier will find out in time who are really her friends."

"It is a safe plan," Major Forrest remarked, "and a pleasant one, to believe in everybody until they want something from you. Then is the time for distrust."

Jeanne sighed.

"And by that time, perhaps," she said, "one's affections are hopelessly engaged. I think that it is a very difficult world."

The Princess shrugged her shoulders.

"Three months," she remarked, "is not a long time. Wait, my dear child, until you have at least lived through a single season before you commit yourself to any final opinions."

Their host intervened. He was beginning to find the conversation dull. He was far more interested in another matter.

"Let us talk about that visit," he said to the Princess. "I do wish that you could make up your mind to come. Of course, I haven't any amusements to offer you, but you could rest as thoroughly as you like. They say that the air is the finest in England. There is always bridge, you know, for the evenings, and if Miss Jeanne likes bathing, my gardens go down to the beach."

"It sounds delightful," the Princess said, "and exactly what we want. We have a good many invitations, but I have not cared to accept any of them, for I do not think that Jeanne would care much for the life at an ordinary country house. I myself," she continued, with perfect truth, "am not squeamish, but the last house-party I was at was certainly not the place for a very young girl."

"Make up your mind, then, and say yes," Cecil de la Borne pleaded.

"You shall hear from us within the next few days," the Princess answered. "I really believe that we shall come."

The little party left the restaurant a few minutes later on their way into the foyer for coffee. The Princess contrived to pass out with Forrest as her companion.

"I think," she said under her breath, "that this is the best opportunity you could possibly have. We shall be quite alone down there, and perhaps it would be as well that you were out of London for a few weeks. If it does not come to anything we can easily make an excuse to get away."

Forrest nodded.

"But who is this young man, De la Borne?" he asked. "I don't mean that. I know who he is, of course, but why should he invite perfect strangers to stay with him?"

The Princess smiled faintly.

"Can't you see," she answered, "that he is simply a silly boy? He is only twenty-four years old, and I think that he cannot have seen much of the world. He told me that he had just been abroad for the first time. He fancies that he is a little in love with me, and he is dazzled, of course, by the idea of Jeanne's fortune. He wants to play the host to us. Let him. I should be glad enough to get away for a few weeks, if only to escape from these pestering letters. I do think that one's tradespeople might let one alone until the end of the season."

Forrest, who was feeling a good deal braver since dinner, on the whole favoured the idea.

"I do not see," he remarked, "why it should not work out very well indeed. There will be nothing to do in the evenings except to play bridge, and no one to interfere."

"Besides which," the Princess remarked, "you will be out of London for a few weeks, and I dare say that if you keep away from the clubs for a time and lose a few rubbers when you get back your little trouble may blow over."

"I suppose," Forrest remarked thoughtfully, "this young De la Borne has no people living with him, guardians, or that sort of thing?"

"No one of any account," the Princess answered. "His father and mother are both dead. I am afraid, though, he will not be of any use to you, for from what I can hear he is quite poor. However, Engleton ought to be quite enough if we can keep him in the humour for playing."

"Ask him a few more questions about the place," Forrest said. "If it seems all right, I should like to start as soon as possible."

They had their coffee at a little table in the foyer, which was already crowded with people. Their conversation was often interrupted by the salutations of passing acquaintances. Jeanne alone looked about her with any interest. To the others, this sort of thing—the music of the red-coated band, the flowers, and the passing throngs of people, the handsomest and the weariest crowd in the world—were only part of the treadmill of life.

"By the by, Mr. De la Borne," the Princess asked, "how much longer are you going to stay in London?"

"I must go back to-morrow or the next day," the young man answered, a little gloomily. "I sha'n't mind it half so much if you people only make up your minds to pay me that visit."

The Princess motioned to him to draw his chair a little nearer to hers.

"If we take this tour at all," she remarked, "I should like to start the day after to-morrow. There is a perfectly hideous function on Thursday which I should so like to miss, and the stupidest dinner-party on earth at night. Should you be home by then, do you think?"

"If there were any chance of your coming at all," the young man answered eagerly, "I should leave by the first train to-morrow morning."

"I think," the Princess declared softly, "that we will come. Don't think me rude if I say that we could not possibly be more bored than we are in London. I do not want to take Jeanne to any of the country house-parties we have been invited to. You know why. She really is such a child, and I am afraid that if she gets any wrong ideas about things she may want to go back to the convent. She has hinted at it more than once already."

"There will be nothing of that sort at Salt-house," Cecil de la Borne declared eagerly. "You see, I sha'n't have any guests at all except just yourselves. Don't you think that would be best?"

"I do, indeed," the Princess assented, "and mind, you are not to make any special preparations for us. For my part, I simply want a little rest before we go abroad again, and we really want to come to you feeling the same way that one leaves one's home for lodgings in a farmhouse. You will understand this, won't you, Cecil?" she added earnestly, laying her fingers upon his arm, "or we shall not come."

"It shall be just as you say," he answered. "As a matter of fact the Red Hall is little more than a large farmhouse, and there is very little preparation which I could make for you in a day or a day and a half. You shall come and see how a poor English countryman lives, whose lands and income have shrivelled up together. If you are dull you will not blame me, I know, for all that you have to do is to go away."

The Princess rose and put out her hand.

"It is settled, then," she declared. "Thank you, dear Mr. Host, for your very delightful dinner. Jeanne and I have to go on to Harlingham House for an hour or two, the last of these terrible entertainments, I am glad to say. Do send me a note round in the morning, with the exact name of your house, and some idea of the road we must follow, so that we do not get lost. I suppose you two," she added, turning to Forrest and Lord Ronald, "will not mind starting a day or two before we had planned?"

"Not in the least," they assured her.

"And Miss Le Mesurier?" Cecil de la Borne asked. "Will she really not mind giving up some of these wonderful entertainments?"

Jeanne smiled upon him brilliantly. It was a smile which came so seldom, and which, when it did come, transformed her face so utterly, that she seemed like a different person.

"I shall be very glad, indeed," she said, "to leave London. I am looking forward so much to seeing what the English country is like."

"It will make me very happy," Cecil de la Borne said, bowing over her hand, "to try and show you."

Her eyes seemed to pass through him, to look out of the crowded room, as though indeed they had found their way into some corner of the world where the things which make life lie. It was a lapse from which she recovered almost immediately, but when she looked at him, and with a little farewell nod withdrew her hand, the transforming gleam had passed away.

"And there is the sea, too," she remarked, looking backwards as they passed out. "I am longing to see that again."

CHAPTER III

Perhaps there was never a moment in the lives of these two men when their utter and radical dissimilarity, physically as well as in the larger ways, was more strikingly and absolutely manifest. Like a great sea animal, huge, black-bearded, bronzed, magnificent, but uncouth, Andrew de la Borne, in the oilskins and overalls of a village fisherman, stood in the great bare hall in front of the open fireplace, reckless of his drippings, at first only mildly amused by the half cynical, half angry survey of the very elegant young man who had just descended the splendid oak staircase, with its finely carved balustrade, black and worm-eaten, Cecil de la Borne stared at his brother with the angry disgust of one whose sense of all that is holiest stands outraged. Slim, of graceful though somewhat undersized figure, he was conscious of having attained perfection in matters which he reckoned of no small importance. His grey tweed suit fitted him like a glove, his tie was a perfect blend between the colour of his eyes and his clothes, his shoes were of immaculate shape and polish, his socks had been selected with care in the Rue de la Paix. His hair was brushed until it shone with the proper amount of polish, his nails were perfectly manicured, even his cigarette came from the dealer whose wares were the caprice of the moment. That his complexion was pallid and that underneath his eyes were faint blue lines, which were certainly not the hall-marks of robust health, disturbed him not at all. These things were correct. Health was by no means a desideratum in the set to which he was striving to belong. He looked through his eyeglass at his brother and groaned.

"Really, Andrew," he said calmly, but with an undernote of anger trembling in his tone, "I am surprised to see you like this! You might, I think, have had a little more consideration. Can't you realize what a sight you are, and what a mess you're making!"

Andrew took off his cap and shook it, so that a little shower of salt water splashed on to the polished floor.

"Never mind, Cecil," he said good-humouredly. "You've all the deportment that's necessary in this family. And salt water doesn't stain. These boards have been washed with it many a time."

The young man's face lost none of his irritation.

"But what on earth have you been doing?" he exclaimed. "Where have you been to get in a state like that?"

Andrew's face was suddenly overcast. It did not please him to think of those last few hours.

"I had to go out to bring a mad woman home," he said. "Kate Caynsard was out in her catboat a day like this. It was suicide if I hadn't reached her in time."

"You—did reach her in time?" the young man asked quickly.

Andrew turned to face the questioner, and the eyes of the brothers met. Again the differences between them seemed to be suddenly and marvellously accentuated. Andrew's cheeks, bronzed and hardened with a life spent wholly out of doors, were glistening still with the salt water which dripped down from his hair and hung in sparkling globules from his beard. Cecil was paler than ever; there was something almost furtive in that swift insistent look. Perhaps he recognized something of what was in the other's mind. At any rate the good-nature left his manner—his tone took to itself a sterner note.

"I came back," he said grimly. "I should not have come back alone. She was hard to save, too," he added, after a moment's pause.

"She is mad," Cecil muttered. "A queer lot, all the Caynsards."

"She is as sane as you or I," his brother answered. "She does rash things, and she chooses to treat her life as though it were a matter of no consequence. She took a fifty to one chance at the bar, and she nearly lost. But, by heaven, you should have seen her bring my little boat down the creek, with the tide swelling, and a squall right down on the top of us. It was magnificent. Cecil!"

"Well?"

"Why does Kate Caynsard treat her life as though it were of less value than the mackerel she lowers her line for? Do you know?"

The younger man dropped his eyeglass and shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

"Since when," he demanded, "have I shown any inclination to play the village Lothario? Thick ankles and robust health have never appealed to me—I prefer the sicklier graces of civilization."

"Kate Caynsard," Andrew said thoughtfully, "is not of the villagers. She leads their life, but her birth is better on her father's side, at any rate, than our own."

"If I might be allowed to make the suggestion," Cecil said, regarding his brother with supercilious distaste, "don't you think it would be just as well to change your clothes before our guests arrive?"

"Why should I?" Andrea asked calmly.

"They are not my friends. I scarcely know even their names. I entertain them at your request. Why should I be ashamed of my oilskins? They are in accord with the life I live here. I make no pretence, you see, Cecil," he added, with a faintly amused smile, "at being an ornamental member of Society."

His brother regarded him with something very much like disgust.

"No!" he said sarcastically. "No one could accuse you of that."

Something in his tone seemed to suggest to Andrew a new idea. He looked down at the clothes he wore beneath his oilskins—the clothes almost of a working man. He glanced for a moment at his hands, hardened and blistered with the actual toil which he loved—and he looked his brother straight in the face.

"Cecil," he said, "I believe you're ashamed of me."

"Of course I am," the younger man answered brutally. "It's your own fault. You choose to make a fisherman or a labouring man of yourself. I haven't seen you in a decent suit of clothes for years. You won't dress for dinner. Your hands and skin are like a ploughboy's. And, d—n it all, you're my elder brother! I've got to introduce you to my friends as the head of the De la Bornes, and practically their host. No wonder I don't like it!"

There was a moment's silence. If his words hurt, Andrew made no sign. With a shrug of the shoulders he turned towards the staircase.

"There is no reason," he remarked, carelessly enough, "why I should inflict the humiliation of my presence on you or on your friends. I am going down to the Island. You shall entertain your friends and play the host to your heart's content. It will be more comfortable for both of us."

Cecil prided himself upon a certain impassivity of features and manner which some fin de siecle oracle of the cities had pronounced good form, but he was not wholly able to conceal his relief. Such an arrangement was entirely to his liking. It solved the situation satisfactorily in more ways than one.

"It's a thundering good idea, Andrew, if you're sure you'll be comfortable there," he declared. "I don't believe you would get on with my friends a bit. They're not your sort. Seems like turning you out of your own house, though."

"It is of no consequence," Andrew said coldly. "I shall be perfectly comfortable."

"You see," Cecil continued, "they're not keen on sport at all, and you don't play bridge—"

Andrew had already disappeared. Cecil turned back into the hall and lit a cigarette.

"Phew! What a relief!" he muttered to himself. "If only he has the sense to keep away all the time!"

He rang the bell, which was answered by a butler newly imported from town.

"Clear away all this mess, James," Cecil ordered, pointing in disgust to the wet places upon the floor, and the still dripping southwester, "and serve tea here in an hour, or directly my friends arrive—tea, and whisky and soda, and liqueurs, you know, with sandwiches and things."

"I will do my best, sir," the man answered. "The kitchen arrangements are a little—behind the times, if I might venture to say so."

"I know, I know," Cecil answered irritably. "The place has been allowed to go on anyhow while I was away. Do what you can, and let them know outside that they must make room for one, or perhaps two automobiles...."

Upstairs Andrew was rapidly throwing a few things together. With an odd little laugh he threw into the bottom of a wardrobe an unopened parcel of new clothes and a dress suit which had been carefully brushed. In less than twenty minutes he had left the house by the back way, with a small portmanteau poised easily upon his massive shoulders. As he turned from the long ill-kept avenue, with its straggling wind-smitten trees all exposed to the tearing ocean gales, into the high road, a great automobile swung round the corner and slackened speed. Major Forrest leaned out and addressed him.

"Can you tell me if this is the Red Hall, my man—Mr. De la Borne's place?" he asked.

Andrew nodded, without a glance at the veiled and shrouded women who were leaning forward to hear his answer.

"The next avenue is the front way," he said. "Mind how you turn in—the corner is rather sharp."

He spoke purposely in broad Norfolk, and passed on.

"What a Goliath!" Engleton remarked.

"I should like to sketch him," the Princess drawled. "His shoulders were magnificent."

But neither of them had any idea that they had spoken with the owner of the Red Hall.

CHAPTER IV

About half-way through dinner that night, Cecil de la Borne drew a long sigh of relief. At last his misgivings were set at rest. His party was going to be, was already, in fact, pronounced, a success. A glance at his fair neighbour, however, who was lighting her third or fourth Russian cigarette since the caviare, sent a shiver of thankfulness through his whole being. What a sensible fellow Andrew had been to clear out. This sort of thing would not have appealed to him at all.

"My dear Cecil," the Princess declared, "I call this perfectly delightful. Jeanne and I have wanted so much to see you in your own home. Jeanne, isn't this nicer, ever so much nicer, than anything you had imagined?"

Jeanne, who was sitting opposite, lifted her remarkable eyes and glanced around with interest.

"Yes," she admitted, "I think that it is! But then, any place that looks in the least like a home is a delightful change after all that rushing about in London."

"I agree with you entirely," Major Forrest declared. "If our friend has disappointed us at all, it is in the absence of that primitiveness which he led us to expect. One perceives that one is drinking Veuve Clicquot of a vintage year, and one suspects the nationality of our host's cook."

"You can have all the primitivism you want if you look out of the windows," Cecil remarked drily. "You will see nothing but a line of stunted trees, and behind, miles of marshes and the greyest sea which ever played upon the land. Listen! You don't hear a sound like that in the cities."

Even as he spoke they heard the dull roar of the north wind booming across the wild empty places which lay between the Red Hall and the sea. A storm of raindrops was flung against the window. The Princess shivered.

"It is an idyll, the last word in the refining of sensations," Major Forrest declared. "You give us sybaritic luxury, and in order that we shall realize it, you provide the background of savagery. In the Carlton one might dine like this and accept it as a matter of course. Appreciation is forced upon us by these suggestions of the wilderness without."

"Not all without, either," Cecil de la Borne remarked, raising his eyeglass and pointing to the walls. "See where my ancestors frown down upon us—you can only just distinguish their bare shapes. No De la Borne has had money enough to have them renovated or even preserved. They have eaten their way into the canvases, and the canvases into the very walls. You see the empty spaces, too. A Reynolds and a Gainsboro' have been cut out from there and sold. I can show you long empty galleries, pictureless, and without a scrap of furniture. We have ghosts like rats, rooms where the curtains and tapestries are falling to pieces from sheer decay. Oh! I can assure you that our primitivism is not wholly external."

He turned from the Princess, who was not greatly interested, to find that for once he had succeeded in riveting the attention of the girl, whose general attitude towards him and the whole world seemed to be one of barely tolerant indifference.

"I should like to see over your house, Mr. De la Borne," she said. "It all sounds very interesting."

"I am afraid," he answered, "that your interest would not survive very long. We have no treasures left, nor anything worth looking at. For generations the De la Bornes have stripped their house and sold their lands to hold their own in the world. I am the last of my race, and there is nothing left for me to sell," he declared, with a momentary bitterness.

"Hadn't you—a half brother?" the Princess asked.

Cecil hesitated for a moment. He had drifted so easily into the position of head of the house. It was so natural. He felt that he filled the place so perfectly.

"I have," he admitted, "but he counts, I am sorry to say, for very little. You are never likely to come across him—nor any other civilized person."

There was a subtle indication in his tone of a desire not to pursue the subject. His guests naturally respected it. There was a moment's silence. Then Cecil once more leaned forward. He hesitated for a moment, even after his lips had parted, as though for some reason he were inclined, after all, to remain silent, but the consciousness that every one was looking at him and expecting him to speak induced him to continue with what, after all, he had suddenly, and for no explicit reason, hesitated to say.

"You spoke, Miss Le Mesurier," he began, "of looking over the house, and, as I told you, there is very little in it worth seeing. And yet I can show you something, not in the house itself, but connected with it, which you might find interesting."

The Princess leaned forward in her chair.

"This sounds so interesting," she murmured. "What is it, Cecil? A haunted chamber?"

Their host shook his head.

"Something far more tangible," he answered, "although in its way quite as remarkable. Hundreds of years ago, smuggling on this coast was not only a means of livelihood for the poor, but the diversion of the rich. I had an ancestor who became very notorious. His name seems to have been a by-word, although he was never caught, or if he was caught, never punished. He built a subterranean way underneath the grounds, leading from the house right to the mouth of one of the creeks. The passage still exists, with great cellars for storing smuggled goods, and a room where the smugglers used to meet."

Jeanne looked at him with parted lips.

"You can show me this?" she asked, "the passage and the cellars?"

Cecil nodded.

"I can," he answered. "Quite a weird place it is, too. The walls are damp, and the cellars themselves are like the vaults of a cathedral. All the time at high tide you can hear the sea thundering over your head. To-morrow, if you like, we will get torches and explore them."

"I should love to," Jeanne declared. "Can you get out now at the other end?"

Cecil nodded.

"The passage," he said, "starts from a room which was once the library, and ends half-way up the only little piece of cliff there is. It is about thirty feet from the ground, but they had a sort of apparatus for pulling up the barrels, and a rope ladder for the men. The preventive officers would see the boat come up the creek, and would march down from the village, only to find it empty. Of course, they suspected all the time where the things went, but they could not prove it, and as my ancestor was a magistrate and an important man they did not dare to search the house."

The Princess sighed gently.

"Those were the days," she murmured, "in which it must have been worth while to live. Things happened then. To-day your ancestor would simply have been called a thief."

"As a matter of fact," Cecil remarked, "I do not think that he himself benefited a penny by any of his exploits. It was simply the love of adventure which led him into it."

"Even if he did," Major Forrest remarked, "that same predatory instinct is alive to-day in another guise. The whole world is preying upon one another. We are thieves, all of us, to the tips of our finger-nails, only our roguery is conducted with due regard to the law."

The Princess smiled faintly as she glanced across the table at the speaker.

"I am afraid," she said, with a little sigh, "that you are right. I do not think that we have really improved with the centuries. My own ancestors sacked towns and held the inhabitants to ransom. To-day I sit down to bridge opposite a man with a well-filled purse, and my one idea is to lighten it. Nothing, I am convinced, but the fear of being found out, keeps us reasonably moral."

"If we go on talking like this," Lord Ronald remarked, "we shall make Miss Le Mesurier nervous. She will feel that we, and the whole of the rest of the world, have our eyes upon her moneybags."

"I am absolutely safe," Jeanne answered smiling. "I do not play bridge, and even my signature would be of no use to any one yet."

"But you might imagine us," Lord Ronald continued, "waiting around breathlessly until the happy time arrived when you were of age, and we could pursue our diabolical schemes."

Jeanne shook her head.

"You cannot frighten me, Lord Ronald," she said. "I feel safe from every one. I am only longing for to-morrow, for a chance to explore this wonderful subterranean passage."

"I am afraid," their host remarked, "that you will be disappointed. With the passing of smuggling, the romance of the thing seems to have died. There is nothing now to look at but mouldy walls, a bare room, and any amount of the most hideous fungi. I can promise you that when you have been there for a few minutes your only desire will be to escape."

"I am not so sure," the girl answered. "I think that associations always have an effect on me. I can imagine how one might wait there, near the entrance, hear the soft swish of the oars, look down and see the smugglers, hear perhaps the muffled tramp of men marching from the village. Fancy how breathless it must have been, the excitement, the fear of being caught."

Cecil curled his slight moustache dubiously.

"If you can feel all that in my little bit of underground world," he said, "I shall think that you are even a more wonderful person—"

He dropped his voice and leaned toward her, but Jeanne laughed in his face and interrupted him.

"People who own things," she remarked, "never look upon them with proper reverence. Don't you see that my mother is dying for some bridge?"

CHAPTER V

The Princess was only obeying a faint sign from Forrest. She leaned forward and addressed her host.

"It isn't a bad idea," she declared. "Where are we going to play bridge, Cecil? In some smaller room, I hope. This one is really beginning to get on my nerves a little. There is an ancestor exactly opposite who has fixed me with a luminous and a disapproving eye. And the blank spaces on the wall! Ugh! I feel like a Goth. We are too modern for this place, Cecil."

Their host laughed as he rose and turned towards Jeanne.

"Your mother," he said, "is beginning to be conscious of her environment. I know exactly how she is feeling, for I myself am a constant sufferer. Are you, too, sighing for the gilded salons of civilization?"

"Not in the least," Jeanne answered frankly. "I am tired of mirrors and electric lights and babble. I prefer our present surroundings, and I should not mind at all if some of those disapproving ancestors of yours stepped out of their frames and took their places with us here."

Cecil laughed.

"If they have been listening to our conversation," he said, "I think that they will stay where they are. Like royalty," he continued, "we can boast an octagonal chamber. I fear that its glories are of the past, but it is at least small, and the wallpaper is modern. I have ordered coffee and the card-tables there. Shall we go?"

He led the way out of the gloomy room, chilly and bare, yet in a way magnificent still with its reminiscences of past splendour, across the hall, modernized with rugs and recent furnishing, into a smaller apartment, where cheerfulness reigned. A wood fire burnt in an open grate. Lamps and a fine candelabrum gave a sufficiency of light. The furniture, though old, was graceful, and of French design. It had been the sitting chamber of the ladies of the De la Borne family for generations, and it bore traces of its gentler occupation. One thing alone remained of primevalism to remind them of their closer contact with the great forces of nature. The chamber was built in the tower, which stood exposed to the sea, and the roar of the wind was ceaseless.

"Here at least we shall be comfortable, I think," Cecil remarked, as they all entered. "My frescoes are faded, but they represent flowers, not faces. There are no eyes to stare at you from out of the walls here, Princess."

The Princess laughed gaily as she seated herself before a Louis Quinze card-table, and threw a pack of cards across the faded green baize cloth.

"It is charming, this," she declared. "Shall we challenge these two boys, Nigel? You are the only man who understands my leads, and who does not scold me for my declarations."

"I am perfectly willing," Forrest answered smoothly. "Shall we cut for deal?"

Cecil de la Borne leaned over and turned up a card.

"I am quite content," he remarked. "What do you say, Engleton?"

Engleton hesitated for a moment. The Princess turned and looked at him. He was standing upon the hearthrug smoking, his face as expressionless as ever.

"Let us cut for partners," he drawled. "I am afraid of the Princess and Forrest. The last time I found them a quite invincible couple."

There was a moment's silence. The Princess glanced toward Forrest, who only shrugged his shoulders.

"Just as you will," he answered.

He turned up an ace and the Princess a three.

"After all," he remarked, with a smile, "it seems as though fate were going to link us together."

"I am not so sure," Cecil de la Borne said, also throwing down an ace. "It depends now upon Engleton."

Engleton came to the table, and drew a card at random from the pack. Forrest's eyes seemed to narrow a little as he looked down at it. Engleton had drawn another ace.

"Forrest and I," he remarked. "Jolly low cutting, too. I have played against you often, Forrest, but I think this is our first rubber together. Here's good luck to us!"

He tossed off his liqueur and sat down. They cut again for deal, and the game proceeded.

Jeanne had moved across towards the window, and laid her fingers upon the heavy curtains. Cecil de la Borne, who was dummy, got up and stood by her side.

"Do you know," she said, "although your frescoes are flowers, I feel that there are eyes in this room, too, only that they are looking in from the night. Can one see the sea from here, Mr. De la Borne?"

"It is scarcely a hundred yards away," he answered. "This window looks straight across the German Ocean, and if you look long enough you will see the white of the breakers. Listen! You will hear, too, what my forefathers, and those who begat them, have heard, from the birth of the generations."

The girl, with strained face, stood looking out into the darkness. Outside, the wind and sea imposed their thunder upon the land. Within, there was no sound but the softer patter of the cards, the languid voices of the four who played bridge. A curious little company, on the whole. The Princess of Strurm, whose birth was as sure as her social standing was doubtful, the heroine of countless scandals, ignored by the great heads of her family, impoverished, living no one knew how, yet remaining the legal guardian of a stepdaughter, who was reputed to be one of the greatest heiresses in Europe. The courts had moved to have her set aside, and failed. A Cardinal of her late husband's faith, empowered to treat with her on behalf of his relations, offered a fortune for her cession of Jeanne, and was laughed at for his pains. Whatever her life had been, she remained custodian of the child of the great banker whom she had married late in life. She endured calmly the threats, the entreaties, the bribes, of Jeanne's own relations. Jeanne, she was determined, should enter life under her wing, and hers only. In the end she had her way. Jeanne was entering life now, not through the respectable but somewhat bourgeois avenue by which her great monied relatives would have led her, but under the auspices of her stepmother, whose position as chaperon to a great heiress had already thrown open a great many doors which would have been permanently closed to her in any other guise. The Princess herself was always consistent. She assumed to herself an arrogant right to do as she pleased and live as she pleased. She was of the House of Strurm, which had been noble for centuries, and had connections with royalty. That was enough. A few forgot her past and admitted her claim. Those who did not she ignored....

Then there was Lord Ronald Engleton, an orphan brought up in Paris, a would-be decadent, a dabbler in all modern iniquities, redeemed from folly only by a certain not altogether wholesome cleverness, yet with a disposition which sometimes gained for him friends in most unlikely quarters. He had excellent qualities, which he did his best to conceal; impulses which he was continually stifling.

By his side sat Forrest, the Sphynx, more than middle-aged, a man who had wandered all over the world, who had tried many things without ever achieving prosperity, and who was searching always, with tired eyes, for some new method of clothing and feeding himself upon an income of less than nothing a year. He had met the Princess at Marienbad years ago, and silently took his place in her suite. Why, no one seemed to know, not even at first the Princess herself, who thought him chic, and adored what she could not understand. Curious flotsam and jetsam, these four, of society which had something of a Continental flavour; personages, every one of them, with claim to recognition, but without any noticeable hall-mark....

There remained the girl, Jeanne herself, half behind the curtain now, her head thrust forward, her beautiful eyes contracted with the effort to penetrate that veil of darkness. One gift at least she seemed to have borrowed from the woman who gambled with life as easily and readily as with the cards which fell from her jewelled fingers. In her face, although it was still the face of a child, there was the same inscrutable expression, the same calm languor of one who takes and receives what life offers with the indifference of the cynic, or the imperturbability of the philosopher. There was little of the joy or the anticipation of youth there, and yet, behind the eyes, as they looked out into the darkness, there was something—some such effort, perhaps, as one seeking to penetrate the darkness of life must needs show. And as she looked, the white, living breakers gradually resolved them-selves out of the dark, thin filmy phosphorescence, and the roar of the lashed sea broke like thunder upon the pebbled beach. She leaned a little more forward, carried away with her fancy—that the shrill grinding of the pebbles was indeed the scream of human voices in pain!

CHAPTER VI

With the coming of dawn the storm passed away northwards, across a sea snow-flecked and still panting with its fury, and leaving behind many traces of its violence, even upon these waste and empty places. A lurid sunrise gave little promise of better weather, but by six o'clock the wind had fallen, and the full tide was swelling the creeks. On a sand-bank, far down amongst the marshes, Jeanne stood hatless, with her hair streaming in the breeze, her face turned seaward, her eyes full of an unexpected joy. Everywhere she saw traces of the havoc wrought in the night. The tall rushes lay broken and prostrate upon the ground; the beach was strewn with timber from the breaking up of an ancient wreck. Eyes more accustomed than hers to the outline of the country could have seen inland dismantled cottages and unroofed sheds, groups of still frightened and restive cattle, a snapped flagstaff, a fallen tree. But Jeanne knew none of these things. Her face was turned towards the ocean and the rising sun. She felt the sting of the sea wind upon her cheeks, all the nameless exhilaration of the early morning sweetness. Far out seaward the long breakers, snow-flecked and white crested, came rolling in with a long, monotonous murmur toward the land. Above, the grey sky was changing into blue. Almost directly over her head, rising higher and higher in little circles, a lark was singing. Jeanne half closed her eyes and stood still, engrossed by the unexpected beauty of her surroundings. Then suddenly a voice came travelling to her from across the marshes.

She turned round unwillingly, and with a vague feeling of irritation against this interruption, which seemed to her so inopportune, and in turning round she realized at once that her period of absorption must have lasted a good deal longer than she had had any idea of. She had walked straight across the marshes towards the little hillock on which she stood, but the way by which she had come was no longer visible. The swelling tide had circled round through some unseen channel, and was creeping now into the land by many creeks and narrow ways. She herself was upon an island, cut off from the dry land by a smoothly flowing tidal way more than twenty yards across. Along it a man in a flat-bottomed boat was punting his way towards her. She stood and waited for him, admiring his height, and the long powerful strokes with which he propelled his clumsy craft. He was very tall, and against the flat background his height seemed almost abnormal. As soon as he had attracted her attention he ceased to shout, and devoted all his attention to reaching her quickly. Nevertheless, the salt water was within a few feet of her when he drove his pole into the bottom, and brought the punt to a momentary standstill. She looked down at him, smiling.

"Shall I get in?" she asked.

"Unless you are thinking of swimming back," he answered drily, "it would be as well."

She lifted her skirts a little, and laughed at the inappropriateness of her thin shoes and open-work stockings. Andrew de la Borne held out his strong hand, and she sprang lightly on to the broad seat.

"It is very nice of you," she said, with her slight foreign accent, "to come and fetch me. Should I have been drowned?"

"No!" he answered. "As a matter of fact, the spot where you were standing is not often altogether submerged. You might have been a prisoner for a few hours. Perhaps as the tide is going to be high, your feet would have been wet. But there was no danger."

She settled down as comfortably as possible in the awkward seat.

"After all, then," she said, "this is not a real adventure. Where are you going to take me to?"

"I can only take you," he answered, "to the village. I suppose you came from the Hall?"

"Yes!" she answered. "I walked straight across from the gate. I never thought about the tide coming up here."

"You will have to walk back by the road," he answered. "It is a good deal further round, but there is no other way."

She hung her hand over the side, rejoicing in the touch of the cool soft water.

"That," she answered, "does not matter at all. It is very early still, and I do not fancy that any one will be up yet for several hours."

He made no further attempt at conversation, devoting himself entirely to the task of steering and propelling his clumsy craft along the narrow way. She found herself watching him with some curiosity. It had never occurred to her to doubt at first but that he was some fisherman from the village, for he wore a rough jersey and a pair of trousers tucked into sea-boots. His face was bronzed, and his hands were large and brown. Nevertheless she saw that his features were good, and his voice, though he spoke the dialect of the country, had about it some quality which she was not slow to recognize.

"Who are you?" she asked, a little curiously. "Do you live in the village?"

He looked down at her with a faint smile.

"I live in the village," he answered, "and my name is Andrew."

"Are you a fisherman?" she asked.

"Certainly," he answered gravely. "We are all fishermen here."

She was not altogether satisfied. He spoke to her easily, and without any sort of embarrassment. His words were civil enough, and yet he had more the air of one addressing an equal than a villager who is able to be of service to some one in an altogether different social sphere.

"It was very fortunate for me," she said, "that you saw me. Are you up at this hour every morning?"

"Generally," he answered. "I was thinking of fishing, higher up in the reaches there."

"I am sorry," she said, "that I spoiled your sport."

He did not answer at once. He, in his turn, was looking at her. In her tailor-made gown, short and fashionably cut, her silk stockings and high-heeled shoes, she certainly seemed far indeed removed from any of the women of those parts. Her dark hair was arranged after a fashion that was strange to him. Her delicately pale skin, her deep grey eyes, and unusually scarlet lips were all indications of her foreign extraction. He looked at her long and searchingly. This was the girl, then, whom his brother was hoping to marry.

"You are not English," he remarked, a little abruptly.

She shook her head.

"My father was a Portuguese," she said, "and my mother French. I was born in England, though. You, I suppose, have lived here all your life?"

"All my life," he repeated. "We villagers, you see, have not much opportunity for travel."

"But I am not sure," she said, looking at him a little doubtfully, "that you are a villager."

"I can assure you," he answered, "that there is no doubt whatever about it. Can you see out yonder a little house on the island there?"

She followed his outstretched finger.

"Of course I can," she answered. "Is that your home?"

He nodded.

"I am there most of my time," he answered.

"It looks charming," she said, a little doubtfully, "but isn't it lonely?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Perhaps," he answered. "I am only ten minutes' sail from the mainland, though."

She looked again at the house, long and low, with its plaster walls bare of any creeping thing.

"It must be rather fascinating," she admitted, "to live upon an island. Are you married?"

"No!" he answered.

"Do you mean that you live quite alone?" she asked.

He smiled down upon her as one might smile at an inquisitive child. "I have a ser—some one to look after me," he said. "Except for that I am quite alone. I am going to set you ashore here. You see those telegraph posts? That is the road which leads direct to the Hall."

She was still looking at the island, watching the waves break against a little stretch of pebbly beach.

"I should like very much," she said, "to see that house. Can you not take me out there?"

He shook his head.

"We could not get so far in this punt," he said, "and my sailing boat is up at the village quay, more than a mile away."

She frowned a little. She was not used to having any request of hers disregarded.

"Could we not go to the village," she asked, "and change into your boat?"

He shook his head.

"I am going fishing," he said, "in a different direction. Allow me."

He stepped on to land and lifted her out. She hesitated for a moment and felt for her purse.

"You must let me recompense you," she said coldly, "for the time you have lost in coming to my assistance."

He looked down at her, and again she had an uncomfortable sense that notwithstanding his rude clothes and country dialect, this man was no ordinary villager. He said nothing, however, until she produced her purse, and held out a little tentatively two half-crowns.

"You are very kind," he said. "I will take one if you will allow me. That is quite sufficient. You see the Hall behind the trees there. You cannot miss your way, I think, and if you will take my advice you will not wander about in the marshes here except at high tide. The sea comes in to the most unexpected places, and very quickly, too, sometimes. Good morning!"

"Good morning, and thank you very much," she answered, turning away toward the road.

---

Cecil de la Borne was standing at the end of the drive when she appeared, a telescope in his hand. He came hastily down the road to meet her, a very slim and elegant figure in his well-cut flannel clothes, smoothly brushed hair, and irreproachable tie.

"My dear Miss Jeanne," he exclaimed, "I have only just heard that you were out. Do you generally get up in the middle of the night?"

She smiled a little half-heartedly. It was curious that she found herself contrasting for a moment this very elegant young man with her roughly dressed companion of a few minutes ago.

"To meet with an adventure such as I have had," she answered, "I would never go to bed at all. I have been nearly drowned, and rescued by a most marvellous person. He brought me back to safety in a flat-bottomed punt, and I am quite sure from the way he stared at them that he had never seen open-work stockings before."

"Are you in earnest?" Cecil asked doubtfully.

"Absolutely," she answered. "I was walking there among the marshes, and I suddenly found myself surrounded by the sea. The tide had come up behind me without my noticing. A most mysterious person came to my rescue. He wore the clothes of a fisherman, and he accepted half a crown, but I have my doubts about him even now. He said that his name was Mr. Andrew."

Cecil opened the gate and they walked up towards the house. A slight frown had appeared upon his forehead.

"Do you know him?" she asked.

"I know who he is," he answered. "He is a queer sort of fellow, lives all alone, and is a bit cranky, they say. Come in and have some breakfast. I don't suppose that any one else will be down for ages."

She shook her head.

"I will send my woman down for some coffee," she answered. "I am going upstairs to change. I am just a little wet, and I must try and find some thicker shoes."

Cecil sighed.

"One sees so little of you," he murmured, "and I was looking forward to a tete-a-tete breakfast."

She shook her head as she left him in the hall.

"I couldn't think of it," she declared. "I'll appear with the others later on. Please find out all you can about Mr. Andrew and tell me."

Cecil turned away, and his face grew darker as he crossed the hall.

"If Andrew interferes this time," he muttered, "there will be trouble!"

The Princess appeared for luncheon and declared herself to be in a remarkably good humour.

"My dear Cecil," she said, helping herself to an ortolan in aspic, "I like your climate and I like your chef. I had my window open for at least ten minutes, and the sea air has given me quite an appetite. I have serious thoughts of embracing the simple life."

"You could scarcely," Cecil de la Borne answered, "come to a better place for your first essay. I will guarantee that life is sufficiently simple here for any one. I have no neighbours, no society to offer you, no distractions of any sort. Still, I warned you before you came."

"Don't be absurd," the Princess declared. "You have the sea almost at your front door, and I adore the sea. If you have a nice large boat I should like to go for a sail."

Cecil looked at her with upraised eyebrows.

"If you are serious," he said, "no doubt we can find the boat."

"I am absolutely serious," the Princess declared. "I feel that this is exactly what my system required. I should like to sit in a comfortable cushioned seat and sail somewhere. If possible, I should like you men to catch things from the side of the boat."

"You will get sunburnt," Lord Ronald remarked drily; "perhaps even freckled."

"Adorable!" the Princess declared. "A touch of sunburn would be quite becoming. It is such an excellent foundation to build a complexion upon. Jeanne is quite enchanted with the place. She's had adventures already, and been rescued from drowning by a marvellous person, who wore his trousers tucked into his boots and found fault with her shoes and stockings. She has promised to show me the place after luncheon, and I am going to stand there myself and see if anything happens."

"You will get your feet very wet," Cecil declared.

"And sand inside your shoes," Forrest remarked.

"These," the Princess declared, "are trifles compared with the delightful sensation of experiencing a real adventure. In any case we must sail one afternoon, Cecil. I insist upon it. We will not play bridge until after dinner. My luck last night was abominable. Oh, you needn't look at me like that," she added to Cecil. "I know I won, but that was an accident. I had bad cards all the time, and I only won because you others had worse. Please ring the bell, Mr. Host, and see about the boat."

"Really," Cecil remarked, as he called the butler and gave him some instructions, "I had no idea that I was going to entertain such enterprising guests."

"Oh, there are lots of things I mean to do!" the Princess declared. "I am seriously thinking of going shrimping. I suppose there are shrimps here, and I should love to tuck up my skirts and carry a big net, like somebody's picture."

"Perhaps," Cecil suggested, "you would like to try the golf links. I believe there are some quite decent ones not far away."

The Princess shook her head.

"No!" she answered. "Golf is too civilized a game. We will go out in a fishing boat with plenty of cushions, and we will try to catch fish. I know that Jeanne will love it, and that you others will hate it. Between the two of you it should be amusing."

"Very well," Cecil declared, with an air of resignation, "whatever happens will be upon your own shoulders. There is a boat in the village which we can have. I will have it brought up to our own quay in an hour's time. If the worst comes to the worst, and we are bored to death, we can play bridge on the way."

"There will be no cards upon the boat," the Princess declared decidedly. "I forbid them. We are going to lounge and look at the sea and get sunburnt. Jeanne can wear a veil if she likes. I shall not."

Cecil shrugged his shoulders.

"Very well," he said. "Whatever happens, don't blame me."

---

The Princess had her way and behaved like a schoolgirl. She sat in the most comfortable place, surrounded with a multitude of cushions, with her tiny Japanese spaniel in her arms, and a box of French bonbons by her side. Jeanne stood in the bows, bareheaded and happy. Lord Ronald, who was feeling a little sea-sick, sat at her feet.

"I had no idea," he remarked plaintively, "that your mother was capable of such crudities. If I had known, I certainly would not have trusted myself to such a party. This sea air is hateful. It has tarnished my cigarette-case already, and one's nails will not be fit to be seen. To be out of doors like this is worse than drinking unfiltered water."

Jeanne smiled down at him a little contemptuously.

"You are a child of the cities, Lord Ronald," she remarked. "Next year I am going to buy a yacht myself, but I shall not ask you to come with us."

Lord Ronald groaned.

"That is the worst of all heiresses," he said. "You have such queer tastes. I shall never summon up my courage to propose to you."

"There is always leap year," Jeanne reminded him.

"What a bewildering suggestion!" he murmured, looking uncomfortably over the side of the boat. "I say, Forrest, what do you think of this sort of thing?"

"Idyllic!" Forrest declared cynically. "To sit upon a hard plank and to have one's digestion unmercifully interfered with like this is unqualified rapture. If only there were cabins one might sleep."

"There will be cabins on my yacht," Jeanne declared laughing, "but I shall not ask either of you. You are both of you knights of the candle light. I shall get some great strong fisherman to be captain, and I shall go round the world and forget the days and the months."

Forrest shivered slightly.

"The country," he remarked to the Princess, "is having a terrible effect upon your stepdaughter."

The Princess nodded and thrust a bonbon into the languid jaws of the dog she was holding.

"It is my fault," she declared. "It is I who have set this fashion. It was a whim, and I am tired of it. Tell our host that we will go back."

They tacked a few minutes later, and swept shoreward. Jeanne, still standing in the bows, was gazing steadfastly upon the little island at the entrance of the estuary.

"I should like," she declared, pointing it out to Cecil, "to land there and have some tea."

Cecil looked at her doubtfully.

"We shall be home in a little more than an hour," he said, "and I don't suppose we could get any tea there, even if we were able to land."

"I have a conviction that we should," Jeanne declared. "Mother," she added, turning round to the older woman, "there is an island just ahead of us with a delightful looking cottage. I believe my preserver of this morning lives there. Wouldn't it be lovely to go and beg him to give us all tea?"

"Charming!" the Princess declared, sitting up amongst her cushions. "I should love to see him, and tea is the one thing in the world I want to make me happy."

Cecil de la Borne stood silent for a moment or two, looking steadfastly at the whitewashed cottage upon the island. It seemed impossible, after all, to escape from Andrew!

"The man lives there alone, I believe," he said. "I don't suppose there is any one to get us tea. He would only be embarrassed by our coming, and not know what to do."

Jeanne smiled reflectively.

"I do not think," she said, "that it would be easy to embarrass Mr. Andrew. However, if you like we will put it off to another afternoon, on one condition."

"Let me hear the condition at any rate," Cecil asked.

"That we go straight back, and that you show us that subterranean passage," Jeanne declared.

"Agreed!" Cecil answered. "I warn you that you will find it only damp and mouldy and depressing, but you shall certainly see it."

The girl moved toward the side of the boat, and stood leaning over, with her eyes fixed upon the island. Standing on the small grass plot in front of the cottage she could see the tall figure of a man with his face turned toward them. A faint smile parted her lips as she watched. She took out her handkerchief and waved it. The man for a moment stood motionless, and then raising his cap, held it for a moment above his head. The boat sped on, and very soon they were out of sight. She stood there, however, watching, until they had rounded the sandy spit and entered the creek which led into the harbour. There was something unusually piquant to her in the thought of that greeting with the man, whose response to it had been so unwilling, almost ungracious.

CHAPTER VIII

"Not another step!" the Princess declared. "I am going back at once."

"I too," Forrest declared. "Your smuggling ancestors, my dear De la Borne, must indeed have loved adventure, if they spent much of their time crawling about here like rats."

"As you will," Cecil answered. "The expedition is Miss Jeanne's, not mine."

"And I am going on," Jeanne declared. "I want to see where we come out on the beach."

"This way, then," Cecil said. "You need not be afraid to walk upright. The roof is six feet high all the way. You must tread carefully, though. There are plenty of holes and stones about."

The Princess and Forrest disappeared. Jeanne, with her skirts held high in one hand, and an electric torch in the other, followed Cecil slowly along the gloomy way. The walls were oozing with damp, glistening patches, like illuminated salt stains, and queer fungi started out from unexpected places. Sometimes their footsteps fell on the rock, awaking strange echoes down the gallery. Sometimes they sank deep into the sand. Cecil looked often behind, and once held out his hand to help his companion over a difficult place. At last he paused, and she heard him struggling to turn a key in a great worm-eaten door on their right.

"This is the room," he explained, "where they held their meetings, and where the stuff was hidden. It was used for more than twenty years, and the Customs' people never seemed to have had even an inkling of its existence."

He pushed the door open with difficulty. They found themselves in a gloomy chamber, with vaulted roof and stone floor. A faint streak of daylight from an opening somewhere in the roof, partially lit the place. Here, too, the walls were damp and the odour appalling. There were some fragments of broken barrels at one end, and an oak table in the middle of the floor. Jeanne looked round and shivered.

"Let us go on to the end," she said.

Cecil nodded, and they made their way on down the passage.

"The roof is getting lower now," he said. "You had better stoop a little."

She stopped short.

"What is that?" she asked fearfully.

A sound like rolling thunder, faint at first, but growing more distinct at every step, broke the chill silence of the place.

"The sea," Cecil answered. "We are getting near to the beach."

Jeanne nodded and crept on. Louder and louder the sound seemed to become, until at last she paused, half terrified.

"Where are we?" she gasped. "It sounds as though the sea were right over our heads."

Cecil shook his head.

"It is an illusion," he said. "The sound comes from the air-hole there. We are forty yards from the cliff still."

They crept on, until at last, after a turn in the gallery, they saw a faint glimmering of light. A few more yards and they came to a standstill.

"The entrance is boarded up, you see," Cecil said, "but you can see through the chinks. There is the sea just below, and the rope ladder used to hang from these staples."

She looked out. Sheer below was the sea, breaking upon the rocks and sending a torrent of spray into the air with every wave.

"We can't get out this way, then?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"No, we should want a rope ladder," he said, "and a boat. Have you seen enough?"

"More than enough," Jeanne answered. "Let us get back."

---

Jeanne sank into a garden seat a few minutes later with a little exclamation of relief.

"Never," she declared, "have I appreciated fresh air so much. I think, Mr. De la Borne, that smuggling, though it was a very romantic profession, must have had its unpleasant side."

Cecil nodded.

"There were more air-holes in those days," he said, "but our ancestors were a tougher race than we. Coarse brutes, most of them, I imagine," he added, lighting a cigarette. "Drank beer for breakfast, and smoked clay pipes before meals. Fancy if one had their constitutions and our tastes!"

"The two would scarcely go together," Jeanne remarked. "But after all I should think that absinthe and cigarettes are more destructive. I am dying for some tea. Let us go in and find the others."

Tea was set out in the hall, but only Engleton was there. Forrest and the Princess were walking slowly up and down the avenue.

"I imagine," the latter was saying drily, "that we are fairly free from eavesdroppers here. Now tell me what it is that you have to say, Nigel."

"I am bothered about Engleton," Forrest said. "I didn't like his insisting upon cutting last night. What do you think he meant by it?"

The Princess shrugged her shoulders.

"Nothing at all," she answered. "He may have thought that we were lucky together, and of course he knows that you are the best player. There is no reason why he should be willing to play with Cecil de la Borne, when by cutting with you he would be more likely to win."

"You think that that is all?" Forrest asked.

"I think so," the Princess answered. "What had you in your mind?"

"I wondered," Forrest said thoughtfully, "whether he had heard any of the gossip at the club."

The Princess frowned impatiently.

"For Heaven's sake, don't be imaginative, Nigel!" she declared. "If you give way like this you will lose your nerve in no time."

"Very well," Forrest said. "Let us take it for granted, then, that he did it only because he preferred to play with me to playing against me. What is to become of our little scheme if we cut as we did last night all the time?"

The Princess smiled.

"You ought to be able to manage that," she said carelessly. "You are so good at card tricks that you should be able to get an ace when you want it. I always cut third from the end, as you know."

"That's all very well," Forrest answered, "but we can't go on cutting two aces all the time. I ran it pretty fine last night, when for the second time I gave you a three or a four, and drew a two myself. But he seems to have the devil's own luck. They cut under us, as you know."

The Princess looked up toward the house. She had seen Jeanne and Cecil appear.

"Those people are back from their underground pilgrimage," she remarked. "Have you anything definite to suggest? If not, we had better go in."

"There is only one way, Ena," Forrest said, "in which we could improve matters."

"And what is that?" she asked quickly.

"Don't you think we could get our host in?"

The Princess was silent for several moments.

"It is a little dangerous, I am afraid," she said.

"I don't see why," Forrest answered. "If he were once in he'd have to hold his tongue, and you can do just what you like with him. He seems to me to be just one of those pulpy sort of persons whom you could persuade into a thing before he had had time to think about it."

"I will drop him a hint if you like," the Princess said thoughtfully, "and see how he takes it. Are you sure that the game is worth the candle?"

"Absolutely," Forrest answered eagerly. "I saw Engleton drop two thousand playing baccarat one night, and he never turned a hair. I wasn't playing, worse luck."

"If I can get Cecil alone before dinner," the Princess said, "I will sound him. I think we had better go back now. We are a little old for romantic wanderings, and the wind is beginning to disarrange my hair."

"See what you can do with him, then," Forrest said, as they retraced their steps. "I'll call in and hear if you've anything to tell me on my way down for dinner."

The Princess nodded. They entered the hall, and Cecil at once drew an easy-chair to the tea-table.

"My good people," the Princess declared, "I am famished. Your sea air, Cecil, is the most wonderful thing in the world. For years I have not known what it was like to be hungry. Hot cakes, please! And, Jeanne, please make my tea. Jeanne knows just how I like it. Tell us about the smuggler's cave, Jeanne. Was it really so wonderful?"

Jeanne laughed.

"It was very, very weird and very smelly," she said. "I think that you were wise to turn back."

CHAPTER IX

Andrew came face to face with his brother in the village street on the next morning. He looked at him for a moment in surprise.

"What have you been doing?" he asked, drily. "Sitting up all night?"

Cecil nodded dejectedly.

"Pretty well," he admitted. "We played bridge till nearly five o'clock."

"You lost, I suppose?" Andrew asked.

"Yes, I lost!" Cecil admitted.

"Your party," Andrew said, "does not seem to me to be an unqualified success."

"It is not," Cecil admitted. "Miss Le Mesurier has been quite unapproachable the last few days. She's just civil to me and no more. She isn't even half as decent as she was in town. I wish I hadn't asked them here. It's cost a lot more money than we can afford, and done no good that I can see."

Andrew looked away seaward for a moment. Was it his fancy, or was there indeed a slim white figure coming across the marshes from the Hall?

"Cecil," he said, "are you quite sure that your guests are worth the trouble you have taken to entertain them? I refer more particularly to the two men."

"They go everywhere," Cecil answered. "Lord Ronald is a bit of a wastrel, of course, and I am not very keen on Forrest, but we were all together when I gave the invitation, and I couldn't leave them out."

Andrew nodded.

"Well," he said, "I should be careful how I played cards with Forrest if I were you."

Cecil's face grew even a shade paler.

"You do not think," he muttered, "that he would do anything that wasn't straight?"

"On the contrary," Andrew answered, "I have reason to believe that he would. Isn't that one of your guests coming? You had better go and meet her."

Andrew passed on his way, and Cecil walked towards Jeanne. All the time, though, she was looking over his shoulder to where Andrew's tall figure was disappearing.

"What a nuisance!" she pouted. "I wanted to see Mr. Andrew, and directly I came in sight he hurried away."

"Can I give him any message?" Cecil asked with faint irony. "He will no doubt be up with the fish later in the day."

She turned her back on him.

"I am going back to the house," she said. "I did not come out here to walk with you."

"Considering that I am your host," he began—

"You lose your claim to consideration on that score when you remind me of it," she answered. "Really the only man who has not bored me for weeks is Mr. Andrew. You others are all the same. You say the same things, and you are always paving the way toward the same end. I am tired of it. Stop!"

She turned suddenly round.

"I quite forgot," she said. "I must go into the village after all. I am going to send a telegram."

They retraced their steps in silence. As they entered the telegraph-office Andrew was just leaving, and the postmistress was wishing him a respectful farewell. He touched his hat as the two entered, and stepped on one side. Jeanne, however, held out her hand.

"Mr. Andrew," she said, "I am so glad to see you. I want to go out again in that great punt of yours. Please, when can you take me?"

"I am afraid," Andrew answered, "that I am rather busy just now. I—"

He stopped short, for something in her face perplexed him. It was impossible for her, of course, to feel disappointment to that extent, and yet she had all the appearance of a child about to cry. He felt suddenly awkward and ill at ease.

"Of course," he said, "if you really care about it, I should be very pleased to take you any morning toward the end of the week."

"To-morrow morning, please," she begged.

He glanced towards his brother, who shrugged his shoulders.

"If Miss Le Mesurier is really inclined to go, Andrew," the latter said, "I am sure that you will take good care of her. Perhaps some of us will come, too."

She nodded her farewells to Andrew, and turned back with her host toward the Hall. Cecil looked at her a little curiously. It was certain that she seemed in better spirits than a short time ago. What a creature of caprices!

"Will you tell me, Mr. De la Borne," she asked, "why the postmistress called Mr. Andrew 'sir' if he is only a fisherman?"

"Habit, I suppose," Cecil answered carelessly. "They call every one sir and ma'am."

"I am not so sure that it was habit," she said thoughtfully. "I think that Mr. Andrew is not quite what he represents himself to be. No one who had not education and experience of nice people could behave quite as he does. Of course, he is rough and brusque at times, I know, but then many men are like that."

Cecil did not reply. A grey mist was sweeping in from the sea, and Jeanne shivered a little as they turned into the avenue.

"I wonder," she said pensively, "why we came here. My mother as a rule hates to go far from civilization, and I am sure Lord Ronald is miserable."

"I think one reason why your mother brought you here," Cecil said slowly, "is because she wanted to give me a chance."

She picked up her skirts and ran, ran so lightly and swiftly that Cecil, who was taken by surprise, had no chance of catching her. From the hall door she looked back at him, panting behind.

"Too many cigarettes," she laughed. "You are out of training. If you do not mind you will be like Lord Ronald, an old young man, and I would never let any one say the sort of things you were going to say who couldn't catch me when I ran away."

She went laughing up the stairs, and Cecil de la Borne turned into his study. The Princess was playing patience, and the two men were in easy-chairs.

"At last!" the Princess remarked, throwing down her cards. "My dear Cecil, do you realize that you have kept us waiting nearly an hour?"

"I thought, perhaps," he answered, "that you had had enough bridge."

"Absurd!" the Princess declared. "What else is there to do? Come and cut, and pray that you do not draw me for a partner. My luck is dead out—at patience, anyhow."

"Mine," Cecil remarked, with a hard little laugh, "seems to be out all round. Touch the bell, will you, Forrest. I must have a brandy and soda before I start this beastly game again."

The Princess raised her eyebrows.

"I trust," she said, "that my charming ward has not been unkind?"

"Your charming ward," Cecil answered, "has as many whims and fancies as an elf. She yawns when I talk to her, and looks longingly after one of my villagers. Hang the fellow!"

"A very superior villager," the Princess remarked, "if you mean Mr. Andrew."

Forrest looked up, and fixed his cold intent eyes upon his host.

"I suppose," he said, "you are sure that this man Andrew is really what he professes to be, and not a masquerader?"

"I have known him," Cecil answered, "since I was old enough to remember anybody. He has lived here all his life, and only been away three or four times."

They played until the dressing-bell rang. Then Cecil de la Borne rose from his seat with a peevish exclamation.

"My luck seems dead out," he said.

The Princess raised her eyebrows.

"Possibly, my dear boy," she said, "but you must admit that you also played abominably. Your last declaration of hearts was indefensible, and why you led a diamond and discarded the spade in Lord Ronald's 'no trump' hand, Heaven only knows!"

"I still think that I was right," Cecil declared, a little sullenly.

The Princess said nothing, but turned toward the door.

"Any one dining to-night, Mr. Host?" she said.

"No one," he answered. "To tell you the truth there is no one to ask within a dozen miles, and you particularly asked not to be bothered with meeting yokels."

"Quite right," the Princess answered, "only I am getting a little bored, and if you had any yokels of the Mr. Andrew sort, with just a little more polish, they might be entertaining. You three men are getting deadly dull."

"Princess!" Lord Ronald declared reproachfully. "How can you say that? You never give any one a chance to see you until the afternoon, and then we generally start bridge. One cannot be brilliantly entertaining while one is playing cards."

The Princess yawned.

"I never argue," she said. "I only state facts. I am getting a little bored. Some one must be very amusing at dinner-time or I shall have a headache."

She swept up to her room.

"I suppose we'd better go and change," Cecil remarked, leading the way out into the hall.

Forrest, who was at the window, screwed his eyeglass in and leaned forward. A faint smile had parted the corner of his lips, and he beckoned to Cecil, who came over at once to his side. On the top of the sand-dyke two figures were walking slowly side by side. Jeanne, with the wind blowing her skirts about her small shapely figure, was looking up all the time at the man who walked by her side, and who, against the empty background of sea and sky, seemed of a stature almost gigantic.

"Quite an idyll!" Forrest remarked with a little sneer.

Cecil bit his lip, and turned away without a word.

CHAPTER X

"I don't think," Engleton said slowly, "that I care about playing any more—just now."

The Princess yawned as she leaned back in her chair. Both Forrest and De la Borne, who had left his place to turn up one of the lamps, glanced stealthily round at the speaker.

"I am not keen about it myself," Forrest said smoothly. "After all, though, it's only three o'clock."

Cecil's fingers shook, so that his tinkering with the lamp failed, and the room was left almost in darkness. Forrest, glad of an excuse to leave his place, went to the great north window and pulled up the blind. A faint stream of grey light stole into the room. The Princess shrieked, and covered her face with her hands.

"For Heaven's sake, Nigel," she cried, "pull that blind down! I do not care for these Rembrandtesque effects. Tobacco ash and cards and my complexion do not look at their best in such a crude light."

Forrest obeyed, and the room for a moment was in darkness. There was a somewhat curious silence. The Princess was breathing softly but quickly. When at last the lamp burned up again, every one glanced furtively toward the young man who was leaning back in his chair with his eyes fixed absently upon the table.

"Well, what is it to be?" Forrest asked, reseating himself. "One more rubber or bed?"

"I've lost a good deal more than I care to," Cecil remarked in a somewhat unnatural tone, "but I say another brandy and soda, and one more rubber. There are some sandwiches behind you, Engleton."

"Thank you," Engleton answered without looking up. "I am not hungry."

The Princess took up a fresh pack of cards, and let them fall idly through her fingers. Then she took a cigarette from the gold case which hung from her chatelaine, and lit it.

"One more rubber, then," she said. "After that we will go to bed."

The others came toward the table, and the Princess threw down the cards. They all three cut. Engleton, however, did not move.

"I think," he said, "that you did not quite understand me. I said that I did not care to play any more."

"Three against one," the Princess remarked lightly.

"Why not play cut-throat, then?" Engleton remarked. "It would be an excellent arrangement."

"Why so?" Forrest asked.

"Because you could rob one another," Engleton said. "It would be interesting to watch."

A few seconds intense silence followed Engleton's words. It was the Princess who spoke first. Her tone was composed but chilly. She looked toward Engleton with steady eyes.

"My dear Lord Ronald," she said, "is this a joke? I am afraid my sense of humour grows a little dull at this hour of the morning."

"It was not meant for a joke," Engleton said. "My words were spoken in earnest."

The Princess, without any absolute movement, seemed suddenly to become more erect. One forgot her rouge, her blackened eyebrows, her powdered cheeks. It was the great lady who looked at Engleton.

"Are we to take this, Lord Ronald," she asked, "as a serious accusation?"

"You can take it for what it is, madam," Engleton answered—"the truth."

Cecil de la Borne rose to his feet and leaned across the table. His cheeks were as pale as death. His voice was shaking.

"I am your host, Engleton," he said, "and I demand an explanation of what you have said. Your accusation is absurd. You must be drunk or out of your senses."

"I am neither drunk nor out of my senses," Engleton answered, "nor am I such an utter fool as to be so easily deceived. The fact that you, as my partner, played like an idiot, made rotten declarations, and revoked when one rubber was nearly won, I pass over. That may or may not have been your miserable idea of the game. Apart from that, however, I regret to have discovered that you, Forrest, and you, madam," he added, addressing the Princess, "have made use throughout the last seven rubbers of a code with your fingers, both for the declarations and for the leads. My suspicions were aroused, I must confess, by accident. It was remarkably easy, however, to verify them. Look here!"

Engleton touched his forehead.

"Hearts!" he said.

He touched his lip.

"Diamonds!" he added.

He passed his fingers across his eyebrows.

"Clubs!" he remarked.

He beat with his fourth finger softly upon the table.

"Spades!"

Major Forrest rose to his feet.

"Lord Ronald," he said, "I am exceedingly sorry that owing to my introduction you have become a guest in this house. As for your ridiculous accusation, I deny it."

"And I," the Princess murmured.

"Naturally," Engleton answered smoothly. "I really do not see what else you could do. I regret very much to have been the unfortunate means of breaking up such a pleasant little house-party. I am going to my room now to change my clothes, and I will trespass upon your hospitality, Mr. De la Borne, only so far as to beg you to let me have a cart, or something of the sort, to drive me into Wells, as soon as your people come on the scene."

Engleton rose to his feet, and with a stiff little bow, walked toward the door. He, too, seemed somehow during the last few minutes to have shown signs of a greater virility than was at any time manifest in his boyish, somewhat unintelligent, face. He carried himself with a new dignity, and he spoke with the decision of an older man. For a moment they watched him go. Then Forrest, obeying a lightning-like glance from the Princess, crossed the room swiftly and stood with his back to the door.

"Engleton," he said, "this is absurd. We can afford to ignore your mad behaviour and your discourtesy, but before you leave this room we must come to an understanding."

Lord Ronald stood with his hands behind his back.

"I had imagined," he said, "that an understanding was exactly what we had come to. My words were plain enough, were they not? I am leaving this house because I have found myself in the company of sharks and card-sharpers."

Forrest's eyes narrowed. A quick little breath passed between his teeth. He took a step forward toward the young man, as though about to strike him.

Engleton, however, remained unmoved.

"You are going to carry away a story like this?" he said hoarsely.

"I shall tell my friends," Engleton answered, "just as much or as little as I choose of my visit here. Since, however, you are curious, I may say that should I find you at any future time in any respectable house, it will be my duty to inform any one of my friends who are present of the character of their fellow-guest. Will you be so good as to stand away from that door?"

"No!" Forrest answered.

Engleton turned toward Cecil.

"Mr. De la Borne," he said, "may I appeal to you, as it is your house, to allow me egress from it?"

Cecil came hesitatingly up to the two. The Princess, with a sweep of her skirts, followed him.

"Major Forrest is right," she declared. "We cannot have this madman go back to London to spread about slanderous tales. Major Forrest will stand away from that door, Lord Ronald, as soon as you pass your word that what has happened to-night will remain a secret."

Engleton laughed contemptuously.

"Not I," he answered. "Exactly what I said to Major Forrest, I repeat, madam, to you, and to you, sir, my host. I shall give my friends the benefit of my experience whenever it seems to me advisable."

Forrest locked the door, and put the key into his pocket.

"We shall hope, Lord Ronald," he said quietly, "to induce you to change your mind."

CHAPTER XI

"Every one down for luncheon!" Jeanne declared. "What energy! Where is Lord Ronald, by the by?" she added, looking around the room. "He promised to take me out sailing this morning. I wonder if I missed him on the marshes."

The Princess yawned, and glanced at the clock.

"By this time," she remarked, "Lord Ronald is probably in London. He had a telegram or something in the middle of the night, and went away early this morning."

Jeanne looked at them in surprise.

"How queer!" she remarked. "I was down before nine o'clock. Had he left then?"

"Long before then, I believe," Forrest answered. "He is very likely coming back in a day or two."

Jeanne nodded indifferently. The intelligence, after all, was of little importance to her.

"Has the luncheon gong gone?" she asked. "I have been out since ten o'clock, and I am starving."

Cecil led the way across the hall into the dining-room.

"Come along," he said. "I wish we all had such healthy appetites."

She glanced at him, and then at the others.

"Well," she said, "you certainly look as though you had been up very late last night. What is the matter with you all?"

"We were very foolish," Major Forrest said softly. "We sat up a great deal too late, and I am afraid that we all smoked too many cigarettes. You see it was our last night, for without Engleton our bridge is over."

"We must try," Cecil said, "and find some other form of entertainment for you. Would you like to sail again this afternoon, Princess?"

"I believe," she answered, "that I should like it if I may have plenty of cushions and a soft place for my head, so that if I feel like it I can go to sleep. Really, these late nights are dreadful. I am almost glad that Lord Ronald has gone. At least there will be no excuse for us to sit up until daylight."

"To-night," Major Forrest remarked, "let us all be primitive. We will go to bed at eleven o'clock, and get up in the morning and walk with Miss Le Mesurier upon the marshes. What do you find upon the sands, I wonder," he added, turning a little suddenly toward the girl, "to bring such a colour to your cheeks, and to keep you away from us for so many hours?"

Jeanne looked at him for a moment without change of features.

"It would not be easy," she said, "for me to tell you, for I find things there which you could not appreciate or understand."

"You find them alone?" Major Forrest asked smiling.

She turned her left shoulder upon him and addressed her host.

"Major Forrest is very impertinent," she said. "I think that I will not talk with him any more. Tell me, Mr. De la Borne, do you really mean that we can go sailing this afternoon?"

"If you will," he answered. "I have sent down to the village to tell them to bring the boat up to our harbourage."

She nodded.

"I shall love it," she declared. "It will be such a good thing for you three, too, because it will make you all sleepy, and then you will be able to go to bed and not worry about your bridge. When is Lord Ronald coming back?"

"He was not quite sure," the Princess remarked. "It depends upon the urgency of his business which summoned him away."

"How odd," Jeanne remarked, "to think of Lord Ronald as having any business at all. I cannot understand even now why I did not hear the car go. My room is just over the entrance to the courtyard."

"It is a proof," Major Forrest remarked, "that you sleep as soundly as you deserve."

"I am not so sure about that," Jeanne said. "Last night, for instance, it seemed to me that I heard all manner of strange sounds."

Cecil de la Borne looked up quickly.

"Sounds?" he repeated. "Do you mean noises in the house?"

She nodded.

"Yes, and voices! Once I thought that you must be all quarrelling, and then I thought that I heard some one fall down. After that there was nothing but the opening and shutting of doors."

"And after that," the Princess remarked smiling, "you probably went to sleep."

"Exactly," Jeanne admitted. "I went to sleep listening for footsteps. I think it was very rude of Ronald to go away without saying good-bye to me."

"You would have thought it still ruder," Cecil remarked, "if he had had you roused at five o'clock or so to make his adieux."

The Princess and Jeanne left the table together a few minutes before the other two, and Jeanne asked her stepmother a question.

"How long are we going to stop here?" she inquired. "I thought that our visit was for two or three days only."

The Princess hesitated.

"Cecil is such a nice boy," she said, "and he is so anxious to have us stay a little longer. What do you say? You are not bored?"

"I am not bored," Jeanne answered, "so long as you can keep him from saying silly things to me. On the contrary, I like to be here. I like it better than London. I like it better than any place I have been in since I left school."

The Princess looked at her a little curiously.

"I wonder," she said, "whether I ought to be looking after you a little more closely, my child. What do you do on the marshes there all the time? Do you talk with this Mr. Andrew?"

"I went with him in his boat this morning," Jeanne answered composedly. "It was very pleasant. We had a delightful sail."

The Princess shrugged her shoulders.

"Well," she said, "one must amuse oneself, and I suppose it is only reasonable that we should all choose different ways. I think I need not tell even such a child as you that men are the same all the world over, and that even a fisherman, if he is encouraged, may be guilty sometimes of an impertinence."

Jeanne raised her eyebrows.

"I have not the slightest fear," she said, "that Mr. Andrew would ever be guilty of anything of the sort. I wish I could say the same of some of the people whom I have met in our own circle of society."

The Princess smiled tolerantly.

"Nowadays," she remarked, "it is perfectly true that men do take too great liberties. Well, amuse yourself with your fisherman, my dear child. It is your legitimate occupation in life to make fools of all manner of men, and there is no harm in your beginning as low down as you choose if it amuses you."

Jeanne walked deliberately away. The Princess laughed a little uneasily. As she watched Jeanne ascend the stairs, Forrest and Cecil came out into the hall. They all three moved together into the further corner, where coffee was set out upon a small table, and it was significant that they did not speak a word until they were there, and even then Major Forrest looked cautiously around before he opened his lips.

"Well?" he asked.

The Princess smiled scornfully at their white, anxious faces.

"What are you afraid of?" she asked contemptuously. "Jeanne suspects nothing, of course. There is nothing which she could suspect. She has not mentioned his name even."

Cecil drew a little breath of relief. His face seemed to have grown haggard during the last few hours.

"I wish to God," he muttered, "we were out of this!"

The Princess turned her head and looked at him coldly.

"My young friend," she said, "you men are all the same. You have no philosophy. The inevitable has happened, or rather the inevitable has been forced upon us. What we have done we did deliberately. We could not do otherwise, and we cannot undo it. Remember that. And if you have a grain of philosophy or courage in you, keep a stouter heart and wear a smile upon your face."

Cecil rose to his feet.

"You are right," he said. "Are you ready, Forrest? Will you come with me?"

Forrest rose slowly to his feet.

"Of course," he said. "By the by, a sail this afternoon was a good idea. We must develop an interest in country pursuits. It is possible even," he added, "that we may have to take to golf."

The Princess, too, rose.

"Come into my room, one of you," she said, "and see me for a moment, afterwards. I suppose we shall start for our sail about three?"

Cecil nodded.

"The boat will be here by then," he said.

"And I will come up and bring you the news, if there is any," Forrest added.

CHAPTER XII

The man who stood with a telescope glued to his eye watching the coming boat, shut it up at last with a little snap. He walked round to the other side of the cottage, where Andrew was sitting with a pipe in his mouth industriously mending a fishing net.

"Andrew," he said, "there are some people coming here, and I am almost sure that they mean to land."

Andrew rose to his feet and strolled round to the little stretch of beach in front of the cottage. When he saw who it was who approached, he stopped short and took his pipe from his mouth.

"By Jove, it's Cecil," he exclaimed, "and his friends!"

His companion nodded. He was a man still on the youthful side of middle age, with bronzed features, and short, closely-cut beard. He looked what he was, a traveller and a sportsman.

"So I imagined," he said, "but I don't see Ronald there."

Andrew shaded his eyes with his hand.

"No!" he said. "There is the Princess and Cecil, and Major Forrest and Miss Le Mesurier. No one else. They certainly do look as though they were going to land here."

"Why not?" the other man remarked. "Why shouldn't Cecil come to visit his hermit brother?"

Andrew frowned.

"Berners," he said, "I want you to remember this. If they land here and you see anything of them, will you have the goodness to understand that I am Mr. Andrew, fisherman, and that you are my lodger?"

Andrew's companion looked at him in surprise.

"What sort of a game is this, Andrew?" he asked.

Andrew de la Borne shrugged his shoulders and smiled good-naturedly.

"Never mind about that, Dick," he answered. "Call it a whim or anything else you like. The fact is that Cecil had some guests coming whom I did not particularly care to meet, and who certainly would not have been interested in me. I thought it would be best to clear out altogether, so I have left Cecil in possession of the Hall, and they don't even know that I exist."

The man named Berners looked up at his host with twinkling eyes.

"Right!" he said. "So far as I am concerned, you shall be Mr. Andrew, fisherman. Will you also kindly remember that if any curiosity is evinced as to my identity, I am Mr. Berners, and that I am here for a rest-cure. By the by, how are you going to explain that elderly domestic of yours?"

"He is your servant, of course," Andrew answered. "He understands the position. I have spoken to him already. Yes, they are coming here right enough! Suppose you help me to pull in the boat for them."

The two men sauntered down to the shelving beach. The boat was close to them now, and Cecil was standing up in the bows.

"We want to land for a few minutes," he called out.

"Throw a rope, then," Andrew answered briefly. "You had better come in this side of the landing-stage."

The rope was thrown, and the boat dragged high and dry upon the pebbly beach. The Princess, after a glance at him through her lorgnette, surrendered herself willingly to Andrew's outstretched hands.

"I am quite sure," she said, "that you will not let me fall. You must be the wonderful person whom my daughter has told me about. Is this queer little place really your home?"

"I live here," Andrew de la Borne said simply.

Jeanne leaned over towards him.

"Won't you please help me, Mr. Andrew?" she said, smiling down at him.

He held out his arms, and she sprang lightly to the ground.

"I hope you don't mind our coming," she said to him. "I was so anxious to see your cottage."

"There is little enough to see," Andrew answered, "but you are very welcome."

"We are sorry to trouble you," Cecil said, a little uneasily, "but would it be possible to give these ladies some tea?"

"Certainly," Andrew answered. "I will go and get it ready."

"Oh, what fun!" Jeanne declared. "I am coming to help. Please, Mr. Andrew, do let me help. I am sure I could make tea."

"It is not necessary, thank you," Andrew answered. "I have a lodger who has brought his own servant. As it happens he was just preparing some tea for us. If you will come round to the other side, where it is a little more sheltered, I will bring you some chairs."

They moved across the grass-grown little stretch of sand. The Princess peered curiously at Berners.

"Your face," she remarked, "seems quite familiar to me."

Berners did not for the moment answer her. He was looking towards Forrest, who was busy lighting a cigarette.

"I am afraid, madam," he said, after a slight pause, "that I cannot claim the honour of having met you."

The Princess was not altogether satisfied. Jeanne had gone on with Andrew, and she followed slowly walking with Berners.

"I have such a good memory for faces," she remarked, "and I am very seldom mistaken."

"I am afraid," Berners said, "that this must be one of those rare occasions. If you will allow me I will go and help Andrew bring out some seats."

He disappeared into the cottage, and came out again almost directly with a couple of chairs. This time he met Forrest's direct gaze, and the two men stood for a moment or two looking at one another. Forrest turned uneasily away.

"Who the devil is that chap?" he whispered to Cecil. "I'll swear I've seen him somewhere."

"Very likely," Cecil answered wearily, throwing himself down on the turf. "I've no memory for faces."

Jeanne had stepped into the cottage, and gave a little cry of delight as she found herself in a small sitting-room, the walls of which were lined with books and guns and fishing-tackle.

"What a delightful room, Mr. Andrew!" she exclaimed. "Why—"

She paused and looked up at him, a little mystified.

"Do the fishermen in Norfolk read Shakespeare and Keats?" she asked. "And French books, too, De Maupassant and De Musset?"

"They are my lodger's," Andrew answered. "This is his room. I sit in the kitchen when I am at home."

His dialect was more marked than ever, and his answer had been delivered without any hesitation. Nevertheless, Jeanne was still a little puzzled.

"May I come into the kitchen, please?" she asked.

"Certainly," he answered. "You will find Mr. Berners' servant there getting tea ready."

Jeanne peeped in, and looked back at Andrew, who was standing behind her.

"What a lovely stone floor!" she exclaimed. "And your copper kettle, too, is delightful! Do you mean that when you have not a lodger here, you cook and do everything for yourself?"

"There are times," he answered composedly, "when I have a little assistance. It depends upon whether the fishing season has been good."

Berners came in, and threw himself into an easychair in the sitting-room.

"Make what use you like of my man, Andrew," he said. "I will have a cup of tea in here afterwards."

"I'm very much obliged, sir," Andrew answered.

The Princess called out to him, and he stepped back once more to where they were all sitting.

"It is a shame," she said, "that we drive your lodger away from his seat. Will you not ask him to take tea with us?"

"I am afraid," Andrew answered, "that he is not a very sociable person. He has come down here because he wants a complete rest, and he does not speak to any one unless he is obliged. He has just asked me to have his tea sent into his room."

"Where does he come from, this strange man?" the Princess asked. "It is all the time in my mind that I have met him somewhere. I am sure that he is one of us."

"I believe that he lives in London," Andrew answered, "and his name is Berners, Mr. Richard Berners."

"I do not seem to remember the name," the Princess remarked, "but the man's face worries me. What a delightful looking tea-tray! Mr. Andrew, you must really sit down with us. We ought to apologize for taking you by storm like this, and I have not thanked you yet for being so kind to my daughter." Andrew stepped back toward the cottage with a firm refusal upon his lips, but Jeanne's hand suddenly rested upon the arm of his coarse blue jersey.

"If you please, Mr. Andrew," she begged, "I want you to sit by me and tell me how you came to live in so strange a place. Do you really not mind the solitude?"

Andrew looked down at her for a moment without answering. For the first time, perhaps, he realized the charm of her pale expressive face with its rapid changes, and the soft insistent fire of her beautiful eyes. He hesitated for a moment and then remained where he was, leaning against the flag-staff.

"It is very good of you, miss," he said. "As to why I came to live here, I do so simply because the house belongs to me. It was my father's and his father's. We folk who live in the country make few changes."

She looked at him curiously. The men whom she had known, even those of the class to whom he might be supposed to belong, were all in a way different. This man talked only when he was obliged. All the time she felt in him the attraction of the unknown. He answered her questions and remarks in words, the rest remained unspoken. She looked at him contemplatively as he stood by her side with a tea-cup in his hand, leaning still a little against the flag-staff. Notwithstanding his rough clothes and heavy fisherman's boots, there was nothing about his attitude or his speech, save in its dialect, to denote the fact that he was of a different order from that in which she had been brought up. She felt an immense curiosity concerning him, and she felt, too, that it would probably never be gratified. Most men were her slaves from the moment she smiled upon them. This one she fancied seemed a little bored by her presence. He did not even seem to be thinking about her. He was watching steadily and with somewhat bent eyebrows Cecil de la Borne and Forrest. Something struck her as she looked from one to the other.

"I read once," she remarked, "that people who live in a very small village for generation after generation grow to look like one another. In a certain way I cannot conceive two men more unlike, and yet at that moment there was something in your face which reminded me of Mr. De la Borne."

He looked down at her with a quick frown. Decidedly he was annoyed.

"You are certainly the first," he said drily, "who has ever discovered the likeness, if there is any."

"It does not amount to a likeness," she answered, "and you need not look so angry. Mr. De la Borne is considered very good-looking. Dear me, what a nuisance! Do you see? We are going!"

Andrew de la Borne took the cup from her hand and helped to prepare the boat. With a faint smile upon his lips he heard a little colloquy between Cecil and the Princess which amused him. The Princess, as he prepared to hand her into the boat, showed herself at any rate possessed of the instincts of her order. She held out her hand and smiled sweetly upon Andrew.

"We are so much obliged to you for your delightful tea, Mr. Andrew," she said. "I hope that next time my daughter goes wandering about in dangerous places you may be there to look after her."

Andrew looked swiftly away towards Jeanne. Somehow or other the Princess' words seemed to come to him at that moment charged with some secondary meaning. He felt instinctively that notwithstanding her thoroughly advanced airs, Jeanne was little more than a child as compared with these people. She met his eyes with one of her most delightful smiles.

"Some day, I hope," she said, "that you will take me out in the punt again. I can assure you that I quite enjoyed being rescued."

The little party sailed away, Cecil with an obvious air of relief. Andrew turned slowly round, and met his friend issuing from the door of the cottage.

"Andrew," he said, "no wonder you did not care about being host to such a crowd!"

There was meaning in his tone, and Andrew looked at him thoughtfully.

"Do you know—anything definite?" he asked.

Berners nodded.

"About one of them," he said, "I certainly do. I wonder what on earth has become of Ronald. He was with them yesterday."

"Had enough, perhaps," Andrew suggested.

Berners shook his head.

"I am afraid not," he answered slowly. "I wish I could think that he had so much sense."

CHAPTER XIII

Cecil came into the room abruptly, and closed the door behind him. He was breathing quickly as though he had been running. His lips were a little parted, and in his eyes shone an unmistakable expression of fear. Forrest and the Princess both looked towards him apprehensively.

"What is it, Cecil?" the latter asked quickly. "You are a fool to go about the house looking like that."

Cecil came further into the room and threw himself into a chair.

"It is that fellow upon the island," he said. "You remember we all said that his face was familiar. I have seen him again, and I have remembered."

"Remembered what?" the Princess asked.

"Where it was that I saw him last," Cecil answered. "It was in Pall Mall, and he was walking with—with Engleton. It was before I knew him, but I knew who he was. He must be a friend of Engleton's. What do you suppose that he is doing here?"

Cecil was shaking like a leaf. The Princess looked towards him contemptuously.

"Come," she said, "there is no need for you to behave like a terrified child. Even if you have seen him once with Lord Ronald, what on earth is there in that to be terrified about? Lord Ronald had many friends and acquaintances everywhere. This one is surely harmless enough. He behaved quite naturally on the island, remember."

Cecil shook his head.

"I do not understand," he said. "I do not understand what he can be doing in this part of the world, unless he has some object. I saw him just now standing behind a tree at the entrance to the drive, watching me drive golf balls out on to the marsh. I am almost certain that he was about the place last night. I saw some one who looked very much like him pass along the cliffs just about dinner-time."

"You are frightened at shadows," the Princess declared contemptuously. "If he were one of Lord Ronald's friends, and he had come here to look for him, he wouldn't play about watching you from a distance. Besides, there has been no time yet. Lord Ronald only—left here yesterday morning."

"What is he doing, then, watching this house?" Cecil asked. "That is what I do not like."

The Princess raised her eyebrows contemptuously.

"My dear Cecil," she said, "it is just a coincidence, and not a very remarkable one at that. Lord Ronald had the name, you know, of having acquaintances in every quarter of the world."

Cecil drew a little breath.

"It may be all right," he said, "but I am not used to this sort of thing, and it gives me the creeps."

"Of course it is all right," the Princess said composedly. "One would think that we were a pack of children, to take any notice of such trifles. It is too early, my dear Cecil, by many a day, to look for trouble yet. Lord Ronald always wandered about pretty much as he chose. It will be months before—"

"Don't go on," Cecil interrupted. "I suppose I am a fool, but all the time I am fancying things."

Forrest moved away with a little laugh, and the Princess rose and thrust her arm through Cecil's.

"Silly boy!" she said. "You have nothing to be frightened about, I can assure you."

"I am not frightened," Cecil answered. "I don't think that I was ever a coward. All the same, there are some things about this fellow which I don't quite understand."

The Princess laughed as she swept from the room.

"Don't be foolish, Cecil," she said. "Remember that we are all here, and that nothing can go wrong unless we lose our nerve."

Forrest found the Princess alone a little later in the evening, waiting in the hall for the dinner-gong. He drew her into a corner, under pretext of showing her one of the old engravings, dark with age, which hung upon the wall.

"Ena," he said, "I suppose that you trust Cecil de la Borne? You haven't any fear about him, eh?"

The Princess shrugged her shoulders.

"No!" she answered. "He is a coward at heart, but he has enough vanity, I believe, to keep him from doing anything foolish. All the same, I think it is wiser not to leave him alone here."

"He would not stay," Forrest remarked. "He told me so only this morning."

"You suggested leaving?" the Princess asked.

Forrest nodded.

"I couldn't help it," he said, a little sullenly. "There is something about these great empty rooms, and the silence of the place, that's getting on my nerves. I start every time that great front-door bell clangs, or I hear an unfamiliar footstep in the hall. God! What fools we have been," he added, with a sudden bitter strength. "I couldn't have believed that I could ever have done anything so clumsy. Fancy giving ourselves away to a fool like Engleton, a self-opinionated young cub scarcely out of his cradle."

He felt his damp forehead. The Princess was watching him curiously.

"Don't be a fool, Nigel," she said. "We underrated Engleton, that was all. If ever a man looked an idiot, he did, and you must remember that we were in a corner. Yet," she added, leaning a little forward in her chair and gazing with hard, set face into the fire, "it was foolish of me. With Jeanne to play with, I ought to have had no such difficulties. I never counted upon the tradespeople being so unreasonable. If they had let me finish the season it would have been all right."

Forrest walked restlessly across the room, and stood for a moment looking out of the window. Outside, the wind had suddenly changed. The sunshine had departed, and a grey fog was blowing in from the sea. He turned away with a shiver.

"What a cursed place this is!" he muttered. "I've half a mind even now to turn my back upon it and to run."

The Princess watched his pale face scornfully.

"I thought, Nigel," she said, "that you were a more reasonable person. Remember that if we show the white feather now, it is the end of everything—the Colonies, if you like, or a little cheap watering-place at the best. As for me, I might have a better chance of brazening it out, but remember that I could never afford to be seen in the company of a suspected person."

"It was the fear of losing you," he muttered, "which made me so rash."

The Princess laughed very softly.

"My dear friend," she said, "I do not believe you. I may seem to you sometimes very foolish, but at least I understand this. Life with you is self, self, self, and nothing more. You have scarcely a generous instinct, scarcely a spark of real affection left in you."

"And yet—" he began quietly.

"And yet," she whispered, repulsing him with a little gesture, but with a suddenly altered look in her face, "and yet we women are fools!"

She turned round to meet her host, who was crossing the hall, and almost simultaneously the dinner gong rang out. Their party was perhaps a little more cheerful than it had been on any of the last few evenings. Forrest drank more wine than usual, and exerted himself to entertain. Cecil followed his example, and the Princess, who sat by his side, looked often into his face, and whispered now and then in his ear. Jeanne was the only one who was a little distrait. She left the table early, as usual, and slipped out into the garden. The Princess, contrary to her custom, rose from the table and followed her. A sudden change of wind had blown the fog away, and the night was clear. The wind, however, had gathered force, and the Princess held down her elaborately coiffured hair and cried out in dismay.

"My dear Jeanne," she exclaimed, "but it is barbarous to wander about outside a night like this!"

Jeanne laughed. Her own more simply arranged hair was blown all over her face.

"I love it," she explained. "You don't want me indoors. I am going to walk down the grove and look at the sea."

"Come back into the hall one moment," the Princess said. "I want to speak to you."

Jeanne turned unwillingly round, and her step-mother drew her into the shelter of the open door.

"Jeanne," she said, "you seem to meet your friend the fisherman very often. If you should see anything of him to-morrow, I wish you would inquire particularly as to his lodger. You know whom I mean, the man who was on the island with him yesterday afternoon."

Jeanne looked at her stepmother curiously.

"What am I to ask about him?" she demanded.

"Where he comes from, and what he is doing here," the Princess said. "Find out if you can if Berners is really his name. I have a curious idea about him, and Cecil fancies that he has seen him before."

Jeanne looked for a minute interested.

"You are not usually so curious about people," she remarked.

The Princess lowered her voice a little.

"Jeanne," she said, "I will tell you something. Lord Ronald, when he left here, was very angry with us all. There was a quarrel, and he behaved very absurdly. Cecil fancies that this man Berners is a friend of Lord Ronald's. We want to know if it is so."

Jeanne raised her head and looked her stepmother steadily in the face.

"This is all very mysterious," she said. "I do not understand it at all. We seem to be almost in hiding here, seeing no one and going nowhere. And I notice that Major Forrest, whenever he walks even in the garden, is always looking around as though he were afraid of something. What did you quarrel with Lord Ronald about?"

"It is no concern of yours," the Princess answered, a little sharply. "Major Forrest has had a somewhat eventful career, and he has made enemies. It was chiefly his quarrel with Lord Ronald, and it was over a somewhat serious matter. He has an idea that this man Berners is connected with it in some way or other. Do find out if you can, there's a dear child."

"I do not suppose," Jeanne said, "that Mr. Andrew would know anything. However, when I see him I will ask him."

The Princess turned away from the open door, shivering.

"You are not really going out?" she said.

"Certainly I am," Jeanne answered. "I suppose you three will play cards, and it does not interest me to watch you. There is nothing which interests me here at all except the gardens and the sea. I am going down to the beach, and then I shall sit there behind the hollyhocks until it is bedtime."

The Princess looked at her curiously.

"You're a queer child," she said, turning away.

"It is not strange, that," Jeanne answered, with a little curl of the lips.

The Princess went back to the library. Coffee and liqueurs had already been served, and the card-table was set out, although none of the three had the slightest inclination to play. Jeanne walked along the beach and then came back to her favourite seat, sheltered by the little grove of stunted trees and the tall hollyhocks which bordered the garden. Her eyes were fixed upon the darkening sea, whitened here and there by the long straight line of breakers. The marshes on her right hand were hung with grey mists, floating about like weird phantoms, and here and there between them shone the distant lights of the village. She half closed her eyes. The soft falling of the waves upon the sand below, and the murmur of the wind through the bushes and scanty trees was like a lullaby. She sat there she scarcely knew how long. She woke up with a start, conscious that two men were standing talking together within a few yards of her in the rough lane that led down to the sea.

CHAPTER XIV

The Princess was attempting a new and very complicated form of patience. Forrest was watching her. Their host was making an attempt to read the newspaper.

"In five minutes," the Princess declared, "I shall have achieved the impossible. This time I am quite sure that I am going to do it."

A breathless silence followed her announcement. The Princess, looking up in surprise, found that the eyes of her two companions were fixed not upon her but upon the door. She laid down her cards and turned her head. It was Jeanne who stood there, her hair tossed and blown by the wind, her face ashen white.

"What is the matter, child?" the Princess demanded.

Jeanne came a little way into the room.

"There were two men," she faltered, "talking in the shrubbery close to where I was sitting behind the hollyhocks. I could not understand all that they said, but they are coming here. They were speaking of Lord Ronald."

"Go on," Forrest muttered, leaning forward with dilated eyes.

"They spoke as though something might have happened to him here," the girl whispered. "Oh! it is too horrible, this! What do you think that they meant?"

She looked at the three people who confronted her. There was nothing reassuring in the faces of the two men. The Princess leaned back in her chair and laughed.

"My dear child," she said, "you have been asleep and dreamed these foolish things; or if not, these yokels to whom you have been listening are mad. What harm do you suppose could come to Lord Ronald here?"

"I do not know," Jeanne said, speaking in a low tone, and with the fear still in her dark eyes.

"I told you," the Princess continued, "that there was some sort of a quarrel. What of it? Lord Ronald simply chose to go away. Do you suppose that there is any one here who would think of trying to hinder him? Look at us three and ask yourself if it is likely. Look at Major Forrest here, for instance, who never loses his temper, and whose whole life is a series of calculations. Or our host. Look at him," the Princess continued, with a little wave of her hand. "He may have secrets that we know nothing of, but if he is a desperate criminal, I must say that he has kept the knowledge very well to himself. As for me, you know very well that I quarrel with no one. Le jeu ne vaut pas la peine."

Jeanne drew a little breath. Her face was less tragic. There was a moment's silence. Then Cecil de la Borne moved toward the fireplace. He was pale, but his manner was more composed. The Princess' speech, drawn out, and very slowly spoken, of deliberate intent, had achieved its purpose. The first terror had passed away from all of them.

"I will ring the bell," Cecil said, "and find out who these trespassers are, wandering about my grounds at this hour of the night. Or shall we all go out and look for them ourselves?"

"As you will," Forrest answered. "Personally, I should think that Miss Jeanne has overheard some gossip amongst the servants, and misunderstood it. However, this sort of thing is just as well put a stop to."

A sudden peal rang through the house. The front-door bell, a huge unwieldy affair, seldom used, because, save in the depths of winter, the door stood open, suddenly sent a deep resonant summons echoing through the house. The bareness and height of the hall, and the fact that the room in which they were was quite close to the front door itself, perhaps accounted for the unusual volume of sound which seemed created by that one peal. It was more like an alarm bell, ringing out into the silent night, than any ordinary summons. Coming in the midst of those tense few seconds, it had an effect upon the people who heard it which was almost indescribable. Cecil de la Borne was pale with the nervousness of the coward, but Forrest's terror was a real and actual thing, stamped in his white face, gleaming in his sunken eyes, as he stood behind the card-table with his head a little thrust forward toward the door, as though listening for what might come next. The Princess, if she was in any way discomposed, did not show it. She sat erect in her chair, her head slightly thrown back, her eyebrows a little contracted. It was as though she were asking who had dared to break in so rudely upon her pastime. Jeanne had sunk back into the window, and was sitting there, her hands clasped together.

Cecil de la Borne glanced at the clock.

"It is nearly eleven o'clock," he said. "The servants will have gone to bed. I must go and see who that is."

No one attempted to stop him. They heard his footsteps go echoing down the silent hall. They heard the harsh clanking of the chain as he drew it back, and the opening of the heavy door. They all looked at one another in tense expectation. They heard Cecil's challenge, and they heard muffled voices outside. Then there came the closing of the door, and the sound of heavy footsteps in the hall. Forrest grasped the table with both hands, and his face was bloodless. The Princess leaned towards him.

"For God's sake, Nigel," she whispered in his ear, "pull yourself together! One look into your face is enough to give the whole show away. Even Jeanne there is watching you."

The man made an effort. Even as the footsteps drew near he dashed some brandy into a tumbler and drank it off. Cecil de la Borne entered, followed by the man who had been Andrew's guest and another, a small dark person with glasses, and a professional air. Cecil, who had been a little in front, turned round to usher them in.

"I cannot keep you out of my house, gentlemen, I suppose," he said, "although I consider that your intrusion at such an hour is entirely unwarrantable. I regret that I have no other room in which I can receive you. What you have to say to me, you can say here before my friends. If I remember rightly," he added, "your name is Berners, and you are lodging in this neighbourhood."

The man who had called himself Berners bowed to the Princess and Jeanne before replying. His manner was grave, but not in any way threatening. His companion stood behind him and remained silent.

"I have called myself Berners," he said, "because it is more convenient at times to do so. I am Richard Berners, Duke of Westerham. A recent guest of yours—Lord Ronald—is my younger brother."

The silence which reigned in the room might almost have been felt. The Duke, looking from one to the other, grew graver.

"I suppose," he continued, "I ought to apologize for coming here so late at night, but my solicitor has only just arrived from London, and reported to me the result of some inquiries he has been making. Ronald is my favourite brother, although I have not seen much of him lately. I trust, therefore," he continued, still speaking to Cecil de la Borne, "that you will pardon my intrusion when I explain that from the moment of quitting your house my brother seems to have completely disappeared. I have come to ask you if you can give me any information as to the circumstances of his leaving, and whether he told you his destination."

Cecil de la Borne was white to the lips, but he was on the point of answering when the Princess intervened. She leaned forward toward the newcomer, and her face expressed the most genuine concern.

"My dear Duke," she said, "this is very extraordinary news that you bring. Lord Ronald left here for London. Do you mean to say that he has never arrived there?"

The Duke turned towards his companion.

"My solicitor here, Mr. Hensellman," he said, "has made the most careful inquiries, and has even gone so far as to employ detectives. My brother has certainly not returned to London. We have also wired to every country house where a visit from him would have been a probability, without result. Under those circumstances, and others which I need not perhaps enlarge upon, I must confess to feeling some anxiety as to what has become of him."

"Naturally," the Princess answered at once. "And yet," she continued, "it is only a few days ago since he left here. Your brother, Duke, who seemed to me a most delightful young man, was also distinctly peculiar, and I do not think that the fact of your not being able to hear of him at his accustomed haunts for two or three days is in any way a matter which need cause you any anxiety."

The Duke bowed.

"Madam," he said, "I regret having to differ from you. I beg that you will not permit anything which I say to reflect upon yourself or upon Mr. De la Borne, whose honour, I am sure, is above question. But you have amongst you a person whom I am assured is a very bad companion indeed for boys of my brother's age. I refer to you, sir," he added, addressing Forrest.

Forrest bowed ironically.

"I am exceedingly obliged to you, sir," he said, "for your amiable opinion, although why you should go out of your way to volunteer it here, I cannot imagine."

"I do so, sir," the Duke answered, "because during the last two or three days cheques for a considerable amount have been honoured at my brother's bank, bearing your endorsement. I may add, sir, that I came down here to see my brother. I wished to explain to him that you were not a person with whom it was advisable for him to play cards."

Forrest took a quick step forward.

"Sir," he exclaimed, "you are a liar!"

The Duke bowed.

"I do not quote my own opinion," he said. "I speak from the result of the most careful investigations. Your reputation you cannot deny. Even at your own clubs men shrug their shoulders when your name is mentioned. I will give you the benefit of any doubt you wish. I will simply say that you are a person who is suspected in any assembly where gentlemen meet together, and that being so, as my brother has disappeared from this house after several nights spent in playing cards with you, I am here to learn from you, and from you, sir," he added, turning to Cecil de la Borne, "some further information as to the manner of my brother's departure, or to remain here until I have acquired that information for myself."

The Princess rose to her feet and laid her hand upon Forrest's shoulder. The veins were standing out upon his forehead, and his face was black with anger. He seemed to be in the act of springing upon the man who made these charges against him.

"Nigel," she said, "please let me talk to the Duke. Remember that, after all, from his own point of view, what he is saying is not so outrageous as it seems to us. Cecil, please don't interfere," she added turning towards him. "Duke," she continued, speaking firmly, and with much of the amiability gone from her tone, "you are playing the modern Don Quixote to an extent which is unpardonable, even taking into account your anxiety concerning your brother. Lord Ronald was a guest here of Mr. De la Borne's, and to the best of my knowledge he lost little more than he won all the time he was here. In any case, on Major Forrest's behalf, and as an old friend, I deny that there was any question whatever as to the fairness of any games that were played. Your brother received a telegram, and asked to be allowed the use of the car to take him to Lynn Station early on the following morning. He promised to return within a week."

"You have heard from him since he left?" the Duke asked quickly.

"We have not," the Princess answered. "Only yesterday morning I remarked that it was slightly discourteous. Your brother left here on excellent terms with us all. You can interview, if you will, any member of the household. You can make your inquiries at the station from which he departed. Your appearance here at such an untimely hour, and your barely veiled accusations, remind me of the fable of the bull in the china shop. If you think that we have locked your brother up here, pray search the house. If you think," she added, with curling lip, "that we have murdered him, pray bring down an army of detectives, invest the place, and pursue your investigations in whatever direction you like. But before you leave, I should advise you, if you wish to preserve your reputation as a person of breeding, to apologize to Mr. De la Borne for your extraordinary behaviour here to-night, and the extraordinary things at which you have hinted."

The Duke smiled pleasantly.

"Madam," he said, "I came here to-night not knowing that you were amongst the difficulties which I should have to deal with. I wish to speak to Mr. De la Borne. You will permit me?"

The Princess shrugged her shoulders and turned away.

"I have ventured to speak for both of them," she remarked, "for the sake of peace, because I am a woman and can keep my temper, and they are men who might have resented your impertinence."

The Duke remained as though he had not heard her speech. He laid his hand upon Cecil's shoulder.

"De la Borne," he said, "you and I are scarcely strangers, although we have never met. There have been friendships in our families for many years. Don't be afraid to speak out if anything has gone a little wrong here and you are ashamed of it. I want to be your friend, as you know very well. Tell me, now. Can't you help me to find Ronald. Haven't you any idea where he is?"

"None at all," Cecil answered.

"Tell me this, then," the Duke said, his clear brown eyes fixed steadily upon Cecil's miserable white face. "Were there any unusual circumstances at all connected with his leaving here?"

"None whatever," Cecil answered, with an uneasy little laugh, "except that I had to get up to see him off, and it was a beastly cold morning."

The lawyer, who had been standing silent all this time, drew the Duke for a moment on one side.

"I should recommend, sir," he whispered, "that we went away. If they know anything they do not mean to tell, and the less we let them know as to whether we are satisfied or not, the better."

The Duke nodded, and turned once more to Cecil.

"I am forced to accept your word, Mr. De la Borne," he said, "and when my brother confirms your story I shall make a special visit here to offer you my apologies. Madam," he added, bowing to the Princess, "I regret to have disturbed your interesting occupation."

Forrest he completely ignored, turning his back upon him almost immediately. Cecil went out with them into the hall. In a moment the great front door was opened and closed. Cecil came back into the room, and the perspiration stood out in great beads upon his forehead. Now that the Duke had departed, something seemed to have fallen from their faces. They looked at one another as the ghosts of their real selves might have looked. Forrest stumbled toward the sideboard. Cecil was already there.

"The brandy!" he muttered. "Quick!"

CHAPTER XV

Bareheaded, Jeanne walked upon the yellow sands close to the softly breaking waves. Inland stretched the marshes, with their patches of vivid green, their clouds of faintly blue wild lavender, their sinuous creeks stealing into the bosom of the land. She climbed on to a grassy knoll, warm with the sun's heat, and threw herself down upon the turf. She turned her back upon the Hall and looked steadily seawards, across the waste of sands and pasture-land to where sky and sea met. Here at least was peace. She drew a long breath of relief, cast aside the book which she had never dreamed of reading, and lay full length in the grass, with her eyes upturned to where a lark was singing his way down from the blue sky.

Andrew came before long, speeding his way out of the village harbour in his little catboat. She watched him cross the sandy bar of the inlet, and run his boat presently upon the beach below where she sat. Then she shook out her skirts and made room for him by her side.

"Really, Mr. Andrew," she said, resting her chin upon her hands, and looking up at him with her full dark eyes, "you are becoming almost gallant. Until now, when I have been weary, and have wished to talk to you, I have had almost to come and fetch you. To-day it is you who come to me. That is a good sign."

"It is true," he admitted. "I have kept my telescope fixed upon the sands here for more than an hour. I wanted to see you."

"You have something to tell me about last night?" she asked gravely.

"No!" he answered, "I did not come here to talk about that."

"Did you know," she asked, "who your lodger really was?"

"Yes," he said, "I guessed! I will be frank with you, Miss Jeanne, if you will allow me. I do not like your stepmother and I do not like Major Forrest, but I think that the Duke is going altogether too far when he suspects them of having anything to do with the disappearance of his brother."

She drew a little sigh of relief.

"Oh! I am glad to hear you say that," she declared. "It is all so horrible. I could not sleep last night for thinking about it."

"Lord Ronald will probably turn up in a day or two," Andrew said gravely. "We will not talk any more about him."

She settled herself a little more comfortably, and smoothed out her skirts. Then she looked up at him with faintly parted lips.

"What shall we talk about, Mr. Andrew?" she said softly.

"About ourselves," he answered, "or rather about you. It seems to me that we both stand a little outside the game of life, as your friends up there understand it."

He waved his large brown hand in the direction of the Hall.

"You are a child, fresh from boarding-school, too young to understand, too young to know where to look for your friends, or discriminate against your enemies. I am a rough sort of fellow, also, outside their lives, from necessity, from every reason which the brain of man could evolve. Sometimes we outsiders see more than is intended. Is the Princess of Strurm really your stepmother?"

"Of course she is," Jeanne answered. "She was married to my father when I was quite a little girl, and she has visited me at the convent where I was at school, all my life, and when I left last year it was she who came for me. Why do you ask so strange a question?"

"Because," he said, "I should consider her about the worst possible guardian that a child like you could have. Tell me, what is it that goes on all day up at the Hall there—or rather what was it that did go on before Engleton went away?—eating and drinking, cards, and God knows what sort of foolishness! Nothing else, nothing worth doing, not a thing said worth listening to! It's a rotten life for a child like you. They tell me you're an heiress. Are you?"

She smoothed her crumpled skirts, and looked steadily at the tip of her brown shoe.

"One of the greatest in Europe," she answered. "No one knows how rich I am. You see all the money was left to me when I was six years old, and it is so strictly tied up that no one has had power to touch a single penny until I am of age. That is why it has gone on increasing and increasing."

"And when are you of age?" he asked.

"Next year," she answered.

"By that time, I imagine," Andrew continued, "your stepmother will have sold you to some broken-down hanger-on of hers. Haven't you any other relations, Miss Jeanne?"

She laughed softly.

"You are a ridiculous person," she said. "I am very fond of my stepmother. I think that she is a very clever woman."

"Bah!" he exclaimed in disgust. "A clever woman she may be, but a good woman, no! I am sure of that. You may judge a person by the company they keep. Neither she or this man Forrest are fit associates for a child of your age."

She laughed softly.

"They don't do me any harm," she said. "Mr. De la Borne and Lord Ronald have asked me to marry them, of course, but then every young man does that when he knows who I am. My stepmother has promised me at least that I shall not be bothered by any of them just yet. I am going to be presented next season, we are going to have a house in town, and I am going to choose a husband of my own."

It was Andrew now who looked long and steadily out seawards. She watched him covertly from under her heavily lidded eyes.

"Mr. Andrew," she said softly, "I wish very much—"

Then she stopped short, and he looked at her a little abruptly.

"What is it that you wish?" he asked.

"I wish that you did not wear such strange clothes and that you did not talk the dialect of these fishermen, and that you had more money. Then you too might come and see me, might you not, when we have that house in London?"

He laughed boisterously.

"I fancy I see myself in London, paying calls," he declared. "Give me my catboat and fishing line. I'd rather sail down the home creek, with a northeast gale in my teeth, than walk down Piccadilly in patent boots."

She sighed.

"I am afraid," she admitted, "that as a town acquaintance you are hopeless."

"I am afraid so," he answered, looking steadily seawards. "We country people have strong prejudices, you see. It seems to us that all the sin and all the unhappiness and all the decadence and all the things that mar the beauty of the world, come from the cities and from life in the cities. No wonder that we want to keep away. It isn't that we think ourselves better than the other folk. It is simply that we have realized pleasures greater than we could find in paved streets and under smoke-stained skies. We know what it is to smell the salt wind, to hear it whistling in the cords and the sails of our boats, to feel the warmth of the sun, to listen to the song of the birds, to watch the colouring of God's land here. I suppose we have the thing in our bloods; we can't leave it. We hear the call of the other things sometimes, but as soon as we obey we are restless and unhappy. It is only an affair of time, and generally a very short time. One cannot fight against nature."

"No!" she answered softly. "One cannot fight against nature. But there are children of the cities, children of the life artificial as well as children of nature. Look at me!"

He turned toward her quickly.

"Look at me!" she commanded, and he obeyed.

He saw her pale skin, which the touch of the sun seemed to have no power to burn or coarsen. The clear, wonderful eyes, the delicate eyebrows, the masses of dark hair, the scarlet lips. He saw her white throat swelling underneath her muslin blouse. The daintiness of her gown, airy and simple, yet fresh from a Paris workshop. The stockings and shoes, exquisite, but strangely out of place with their high heels buried in the sand.

"How do I know," she demanded, "that I am not one of the children of the cities, that I was not fashioned and made for the gas-lit life, to eat unreal food at unreal hours, and feed my brain upon the unreal epigrams of the men whom you would call decadents. Two days here, a week—very well. In a month I might be bored. Who shall guarantee me against it?"

"No one," he answered. "And yet there is something in your blood which calls for the truth, which hates the shams, which knows real beauty. Why don't you try and cultivate it? In your heart you know where the true things lie. Consider! Every one with great wealth can make or mar many lives. You enter the world almost as a divinity. Your wealth is reckoned as a quality. What you do will be right. What you condemn will be wrong. It is a very important thing for others as well as yourself, that you should see a clear way through life."

A moment's intense dejection seized upon her. The tears stood in her eyes as she looked away from him.

"Who is there to show it me?" she asked. "Who is there to help me find it?"

"Not those friends whom you have left to play bridge in a room with drawn curtains at this hour of the day," he answered. "Not your stepmother, or any of her sort. Try and realize this. Even the weakest of us is not dependent upon others for support. There is only one sure guide. Trust yourself. Be faithful to the best part of yourself. You know what is good and what is ugly. Don't be coerced, don't be led into the morass."

She looked at him and laughed gaily. Her mood had changed once more with chameleon-like swiftness.

"It is all very well for you," she declared. "You are six foot four, and you look as though you could hew your way through life with a cudgel. One could fancy you a Don Quixote amongst the shams, knocking them over like ninepins, and moving aside neither to the right nor to the left. But what is a poor weak girl to do? She wants some one, Mr. Andrew, to wield the cudgel for her."

It was several seconds before he turned his head. Then he found that, although her lips were laughing, her eyes were longing and serious. She sprang suddenly to her feet and leaned towards him.

"This is the most delightful nonsense," she whispered. "Please!"

She was in his arms for a moment, her lips had clung to his. Then she was away, flying along the sands at a pace which seemed to him miraculous, swinging her hat in her hands, and humming the maddening refrain of some French song, which it seemed to him was always upon her lips, and which had haunted him for days. He hesitated, uncertain whether to follow, ashamed of himself, ashamed of the passion which was burning in his blood. And while he hesitated she passed out of sight, turning only once to wave her hand as she crossed the line of grass-grown hillocks which shut him out from her view.

CHAPTER XVI

"To-morrow," the Princess said softly, "we shall have been here a fortnight."

Cecil de la Borne came and sat by her side upon the sofa.

"I am afraid," he said, "that leaving out everything else, you have been terribly bored."

"I have been nothing of the sort," she answered. "Of course, the last week has been a strain, but we are not going to talk any more about that. You prepared us for semi-barbarism, and instead you have made perfect sybarites of us. I can assure you that though in one way to go will be a release, in another I shall be very sorry."

"And I," he said, in a low tone, "shall always be sorry."

He let his hand fall upon hers, and looked into her eyes. The Princess stifled a yawn. This country style of love-making was a thing which she had outgrown many years ago.

"You will find other distractions very soon," she said, "and besides, the world is a small place. We shall see something of you, I suppose, always. By the by, you have not been particularly attentive to my stepdaughter during the last few days, have you?"

"She gives me very little chance," he answered, in a slightly aggrieved tone.

"She is very young," the Princess said, "too young, I suppose, to take things seriously. I do not think that she will marry very early."

Cecil bent over his companion till his head almost touched hers.

"Dear lady," he said, "I am afraid that I am not very interested in your stepdaughter while you are here."

"Absurd!" she murmured. "I am nearly twice your age."

"If you were," he answered, "so much the better, but you are not. Do you know, I think that you have been rather unkind to me. I have scarcely seen you alone since you have been here."

She laughed softly, and took up her little dog into her arm as though to use him for a shield.

"My dear Cecil," she said earnestly, "please don't make love to me. I like you so much, and I should hate to feel that you were boring me. Every man with whom I am alone for ten minutes thinks it his duty to say foolish things to me, and I can assure you that I am past it all. A few years ago it was different. To-day there are only three things in the world I care for—my little spaniel here, bridge, and money."

His face darkened a little.

"You did not talk like this in London," he reminded her.

"Perhaps not," she admitted. "Perhaps even now it is only a mood with me. I can only speak as I feel for the moment. There are times when I feel differently, but not now."

"Perhaps," he said jealously, "there are also other people with whom you feel differently."

"Perhaps," she admitted calmly.

"When I came into the room the other day," he said, "Forrest was holding your hand."

"Major Forrest," she said, "has been very much upset. He needed a little consolation. He has some other engagements, and he ought to have left before now, but, as you know, we are all prisoners. I wonder how long it will last."

"I cannot tell," Cecil answered gloomily. "Forrest knows more about it than I do. What does he say to you?"

"He thinks," the Princess said slowly, "that we may be able to leave in a few days now."

"Then while you do stay," Cecil begged, "be a little kinder to me."

She withdrew her hand from her dog and patted his for a moment.

"You foolish boy," she said. "Of course I will be a little kinder to you, if you like, but I warn you that I shall only be a disappointment. Boys of your age always expect so much, and I have so little to give."

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Because it is the truth," she answered. "You must not expect anything more from me than the husk of things. Believe me, I am not a poseuse. I really mean it."

"You may change your mind," he said.

"I may," she answered. "I have no convictions, and my enemies would add, no principles. If any one could make me feel the things which I have forgotten how to feel, I myself am perfectly willing! But don't hope too much from that. And do, there's a dear boy, go and stop my maid. I can see her on her way down the drive there. She has some telegrams I gave her, and I want to send another."

Cecil hurried out, and the Princess, moving to the window, beckoned to Forrest, who was lounging in a wicker chair with a cigarette in his mouth.

"Nigel," she said, "how much longer?"

Forrest looked despondently at his cigarette.

"I cannot tell," he answered. "Perhaps one day, perhaps a week, perhaps—"

"No!" the Princess interrupted, "I do not wish to hear that eventuality."

"You know that the Duke is still about?" Forrest said gloomily. "I saw him this morning. There has been a fellow, too—a detective, of course—enquiring about the car and who was able to drive it."

"But that," the Princess interrupted, "is all in our favour. You were seen to bring it back up the drive about ten o'clock in the morning."

Forrest nodded.

"Don't let's talk about it," he said. "Where is Jeanne? Do you know?"

The Princess pointed toward the lawn to where Cecil and Jeanne were just starting a game of croquet. Forrest watched them for a few minutes meditatively.

"Ena," he said, dropping his voice a little, "what are you going to do with that child? I have never quite understood your plans. You promised to talk to me about it while we were down here."

"I know," the Princess answered, "only this other affair has driven everything out of our minds. What I should like to do," she continued, "is to marry her before she comes of age, if I can find any one willing to pay the price."

"The price?" he repeated doubtfully.

The Princess nodded.

"Supposing," she continued, "that her fortune amounted to nearly four hundred thousand pounds, I think that twenty-five thousand pounds would be a very moderate sum for any one to pay for a wife with such a dowry."

"Have you any one in your mind?" he asked.

The Princess nodded.

"I have a friend in Paris who is making some cautious inquiries," she answered. "I am expecting to hear from her in the course of a few days."

"So far," he remarked, "you have made nothing out of your guardianship except a living allowance."

She nodded.

"And a ridiculously small one," she remarked. "All that I have had is two thousand a year. I need not tell you, my dear Nigel, that that does not go very far when it has to provide dresses and servants and a home for both of us. Jeanne is content, and never grumbles, or her lawyers might ask some very inconvenient questions."

"Supposing," he asked, "that she won't have anything to do with this man, when you have found one who is willing to pay?"

"Until she is of age," the Princess answered, "she is mine to do what I like with, body and soul. The French law is stricter than the English in this respect, you know. There may be a little trouble, of course, but I shall know how to manage her."

"She has likes and dislikes of her own," he remarked, "and fairly positive ones. I believe if she had her own way, she would spend all her time with this fisherman here."

The Princess smoothed the lace upon her gown, and gazed reflectively at the turquoises upon her white fingers.

"Jeanne's father," she remarked, "was bourgeois, and her mother had little family. Race tells, of course. I have never attempted to influence her. When there is a great struggle ahead, it is as well to let her have her own way in small things. Hush! She is coming. I suppose the croquet has been a failure."

Jeanne came across to them, swinging her mallet in her hand.

"Will some one," she begged, "take our too kind host away from me? He follows me everywhere, and I am bored. I have played croquet with him, but he is not satisfied. If I try to read, he comes and sits by my side and talks nonsense. If I say I am going for a walk, he wants to come with me. I am tired of it."

The Princess looked at her stepdaughter critically. Jeanne was dressed in white, with a great red rose stuck through her waistband. She was paler even than usual, her eyes were dark and luminous, and the curve of her scarlet lips suggested readily enough the weariness of which she spoke.

The Princess shrugged her shoulders and gathered up her skirts.

"Do what you like, my dear," she said. "I will tell Cecil to leave you alone. But remember that he is our host. You must really be civil to him."

She strolled across the lawn to where Cecil was still knocking the croquet balls about. Jeanne sank into her place, and Forrest looked at her for a few moments attentively.

"You are a strange child," he said at last.

She glanced towards him as though she found his speech an impertinence. Then she looked away across the old-fashioned, strangely arranged garden, with its irregular patches of many coloured flowers, its wind-swept shrubs, its flag-staff rising from the grassy knoll at the seaward extremity. She watched the seagulls, wheeling in from the sea, and followed the line of smoke of a distant steamer. She seemed to find all these things more interesting than conversation.

"You do not like me," he remarked quietly. "You have never liked me."

"I have liked very few of my stepmother's friends," she answered, "any more than I like the life which I have been compelled to lead since I left school."

"You would prefer to be back there, perhaps?" he remarked, a little sarcastically.

"I should," she answered. "It was prison of a sort, but one was at least free to choose one's friends."

"If," he suggested, "you could make up your mind that I was a person at any rate to be tolerated, I think that I could make things easier for you. Your stepmother is always inclined to follow my advice, and I could perhaps get her to take you to quieter places, where you could lead any sort of life you liked."

"Thank you," she answered. "Before very long I shall be my own mistress. Until then I must make the best of things. If you wish to do something for me you can answer a question."

"Ask it, then," he begged at once. "If I can, I shall be only too glad."

"You can tell me something which since the other night," she said, "has been worrying me a good deal. You can tell me who it was that drove Lord Ronald to the station the morning he went away. I thought that he sent his chauffeur away two days ago, and that there was no one here who could drive the car."

Forrest was momentarily taken aback. He answered, however, with scarcely any noticeable hesitation.

"I did," he answered. "I didn't make much of a job of it, and the car has been scarcely fit to use since, but I managed it somehow, or rather we did between us. He came and knocked me up about five o'clock, and begged me to come and try."

She looked at him with peculiar steadfastness. There was nothing in her eyes or her expression to suggest belief or disbelief in his words.

"But I have heard you say so often," she remarked, "that you knew absolutely nothing about the mechanism of a car, and that you would not drive one for anything in the world."

He nodded.

"I am not proud of my skill," he answered, "but I did try at Homburg once. There was nothing else to do, and I had some idea of buying a small car for touring in the Black Forest. If you doubt my words, you can ask any of the servants. They saw me bring the car up the avenue later in the morning."

"It was being dragged up," she reminded him. "The engine was not going."

He looked a little startled.

"It had only just gone wrong," he said. "I had brought it all the way from Lynn."

She rose to her feet.

"Thank you for answering my question," she said. "I am going for a walk now."

He leaned quite close to her.

"Alone?" he asked suggestively.

She swept away without even looking at him. He shrugged his shoulders as he resumed his seat.

"I am not sure," he said reflectively, as he lit a cigarette, "that Ena will find that young woman so easy to deal with as she imagines!"

CHAPTER XVII

Andrew looked up from his gardening, startled by the sudden peal of thunder. Absorbed in his task, he had not noticed the gathering storm. The sky was black with clouds, riven even while he looked with a vivid flash of forked lightning. The ground beneath his feet seemed almost to shake beneath that second peal of thunder. In the stillness that followed he heard the cry of a woman in distress. He threw down his spade and raced to the other side of the garden. About twenty yards from the shore, Jeanne, in a small boat, was rowing toward the island. She was pulling at the great oars with feeble strokes, and making no headway against the current which was sweeping down the tidal way. There was no time for hesitation. Andrew threw off his coat, and wading into the water, reached her just in time. He clambered into the boat and took the oars from her trembling fingers. He was not a moment too soon, for the long tidal waves were rushing in now before the storm. He bent to his task, and drove the boat safely on to the beach. Then he stood up, dripping, and handed her out.

"My dear young lady," he said, a little brusquely, and forgetting for the moment his Norfolk dialect, "what on earth are you about in that little boat all by yourself?"

She was still frightened, and she looked at him a little piteously.

"Please don't be angry with me," she said. "I wanted to come here and see you, to—to ask your advice. The boat was lying there, and it looked such a very short distance across, and directly I had started the big waves began to come in and I was frightened."

The storm broke upon them. Another peal of thunder was followed by a downpour of rain. He caught hold of her hand.

"Run as hard as you can," he said.

They reached the cottage, breathless. He ushered her into his little sitting-room.

"Has your friend gone?" she asked.

"Yes!" he answered. "He went last night."

"I am glad," she declared. "I wanted to see you alone. You said that he was lodging here, did you not?"

Andrew nodded.

"Yes," he said, "but he only stayed for a few days."

"You have an extra room here, then?" she asked.

"Certainly," he answered, wondering a little at the drift of her questions.

"Will you let it to me, please?" she asked. "I am looking for lodgings, and I should like to stay for a little time here."

He looked at her in amazement.

"My dear young lady!" he exclaimed. "You are joking!"

"I am perfectly serious," she answered. "I will tell you all about it if you like."

"But your stepmother!" he protested. "She would never come to such a place. Besides, you are Mr. De la Borne's guests."

"I do not wish to stay there any longer," she said. "I do not wish to stay with my stepmother any longer. Something has happened which I cannot altogether explain to you, but which makes me feel that I want to get away from them all. I have enough money, and I am sure I should not be much trouble. Please take me, Mr. Andrew."

He suddenly realized what a child she was. Her dark eyes were raised wistfully to his. Her oval face was a little flushed by her recent exertions. She wore a very short skirt, and her hair hung about her shoulders in a tangled mass. Her little foreign mannerisms, half inciting, half provocative, were forgotten. His heart was full of pity for her.

"My dear child," he said, "you are not serious. You cannot possibly be serious. Your stepmother is your guardian, and she certainly would not allow you to run away from her like this. Besides, I have not even a maid-servant. It would be absolutely impossible for you to stay here."

Her eyes filled with tears. She dropped her arms with a weary little gesture.

"But I should love it so much," she said. "Here I could rest, and forget all the things which worry me in this new life. Here I could watch the sea come in. I could sit down on the beach there and listen to the larks singing on the marshes. Oh! it would be such a rest—so peaceful! Mr. Andrew, is it quite impossible?"

He played his part well enough, laughing at her good-humouredly.

"It is more than impossible," he said. "If you stayed here for any time at all, your stepmother would come and fetch you back, and I should get into terrible disgrace. Mr. De la Borne would probably turn me out of my house," he added as an afterthought.

She sat down and looked out of the window in despair. The storm was still raging. The skies were black, and the window-pane streaming with rain-drops. She shivered a little.

"If I could help you in any other way," he continued, after a moment's pause, "I should be very glad to try."

She turned upon him quickly.

"How can you help me, or any one," she demanded, "unless you can take me away from these people? Listen! Until a few months ago I had scarcely seen my stepmother. She fetched me away from the convent, took me to Paris for some clothes, and since then I have done nothing but go to parties and houses where the people seem all to have fine names, but behave horribly. I know that I am rich. They told me that before I left the convent, so that I might be a little prepared, but is that any reason why every man, old and young, should say foolish things to me, and pretend that they have fallen in love, when I know all the time that it is my fortune they are thinking of. And my stepmother speaks of marrying me as though I were a piece of merchandise, to be disposed of to the highest bidder. I do not like her friends. I do not like the way they live. I have never liked Major Forrest. Last night your lodger and another man came to the Hall. They asked questions about Lord Ronald. They asked questions and they were told lies. I am sure of it. It got on my nerves. I thought I should shriek. Major Forrest said that it was he who drove Lord Ronald into Lynn, thirty-five miles away, at six o'clock in the morning. I am sure that he could not have driven the car a hundred yards."

"Good God!" Andrew muttered.

"I am sure of it," Jeanne continued. "Two days before Lord Ronald disappeared, he wanted the car to take us over to Sandringham, and he could not find the chauffeur. It seems that he was down at the public-house at the village, and he came back intoxicated. Lord Ronald was angry, and he sent the man away. The car was there in the coach-house, and there was no one who could drive it."

"But," Andrew protested, "Major Forrest was seen returning in the car."

"He was pulled up the avenue in it," Jeanne answered. "How he got the car there I don't know, but I do not believe that it had ever been any further."

"Why do you not believe that?" Andrew asked.

She leaned towards him.

"Because," she said, "I was up early. The car was there at eight o'clock, alone, just outside the gates. There were the marks where it had come down from the house, but there were no marks on the other side. I am sure that it had been no further. I felt the engine and it was cold. I do not believe that it had been started at all."

Andrew was looking very serious.

"Then," he said, "if Lord Ronald was not taken to Lynn that morning, what do you suppose has become of him?"

"I do not know," she cried. "I am afraid. I dare not stay there. They all look at one another and leave off talking when I come into the room unexpectedly. They all seem as though some trouble were hanging over them. I am afraid to be there, Mr. Andrew."

Andrew was very serious indeed now.

"I will go up to the Hall at once," he said, "and I will see Mr. De la Borne. I have some influence with him, and I will get to the bottom of the whole matter. I will take you back, and I will make inquiries at once."

She settled down in his easy chair. Her dark eyes were full of pleading.

"But, Mr. Andrew," she said, "I do not want to go back to the Hall. I am afraid of them all, and I am afraid of my stepmother more than any of them. Why may I not stay here? I will be very good, and I will give you no trouble at all."

"My child," he said firmly, "you are talking nonsense. I am only a village fisherman, but you could not possibly stay in my house here. I have not even a housekeeper."

"That," she declared calmly, "is an excellent reason why I should stop. I will be your housekeeper. Come and sit here by me and let us talk about it."

He walked instead to the window. He did not choose at that moment that she should see his face.

"You do not wish to have me!" she cried.

He turned round. She slid out of her chair and came over to his side.

"I can only tell you," he said gravely, "that it is impossible for you to stay here, and that I must take you home at once."

She took his arm and looked up into his face.

"At once, Mr. Andrew?" she asked timidly.

"As soon as the storm goes down," he answered, glancing uneasily towards the clock. "Listen, please, Miss—"

"Jeanne," she whispered.

"Miss Jeanne, then," he said. "There are some things which you do not yet understand very well, because you have been brought up differently to most English girls. I have some influence with Mr. De la Borne, and I shall do what I can for you up at the house. But it is very certain that you must not think of leaving your stepmother unless you have some other relative who is willing to take you. A child of your age cannot live alone. It is unheard of."

She sighed, and turned away.

"Very well, Mr. Andrew," she said. "If you do not wish to be troubled with me I will go back. I am ready when you are."

Andrew looked once more out of the window.

"We cannot cross just yet," he said. "The tide is coming in very fast, and even here there is a big sea."

"It is magnificent," she answered, stealing back to his side. "I only wish that we were outside."

"You could not stand up," he answered. "Listen!"

The thunder of the incoming waves seemed to fill the room. Even while they stood there a little shower of pebbles and spray were dashed against the windows. Andrew looked anxiously across the estuary and tapped the barometer by his side.

"I am afraid," he said, "that you are going to be late for dinner to-night. You are a bona fide prisoner here for an hour or more at least."

"I am so glad," she answered.

There was a knock at the door. A man entered with a tea-tray. He was in plain clothes and was obviously a servant. Jeanne looked at him in surprise.

"Has Mr. Berners left his servant here?" she asked.

"For a day or two," Andrew answered hastily. "He may come back, you see, and he went away in a great hurry. Martin, bring another teacup, and make the tea, please."

The man set down the tray and bowed.

"Very good, sir," he answered.

Jeannie watched him disappear, perplexed. Was it because he was so perfectly trained a servant that he addressed the man at her side with the same respect that he would have shown to his own master?

"I may stay for tea, may I?" she asked. "That is something, at any rate. I am going to look round at your things. You don't mind, do you?"

"Certainly not," he answered. "That big fish on the wall was caught within fifty yards of this island. Those sea-birds, too, were all shot from here."

"What strange little creatures!" she murmured. "You seem to find quite a lot of time to read and do other things beside fish, Mr. Andrew," she remarked, as she looked over his bookcases. "You puzzle me very much sometimes. I had no idea," she added, looking at him hesitatingly, "that people who have to work, as you have to, for a living, understood and read books like this."

"Ah, well," he answered, "I had perhaps a little more education than some of them."

The servant returned with some more things upon a tray. Jeanne sat down with a little laugh in front of the teapot. She was very much afraid of saying more than was polite, and she felt that she was amongst utterly strange surroundings. Yet it seemed to her a most extraordinary thing that a fisherman in a country village should possess a silver teapot and old Worcester china, and should be waited upon by a man servant even though he were the man servant of a lodger.

CHAPTER XVIII

The storm died away with the coming of evening, but a great sea still broke upon the island beach and floated up the estuary. Andrew stood outside his door and looked across toward the mainland with a perplexed frown. It was barely a hundred yards crossing, but it was certain that no boat could live for half the distance. Jeanne, who had recovered her spirits, stood by his side, and smiled as she saw the white crested waves come rolling up.

"It is beautiful, this," she declared. "Do you not love to feel the spray on your cheeks, Mr. Andrew? And how salt it smells, and fresh!"

"That is all very well," Andrew answered, "but I am wondering how we are going to get over to the other side there."

"I do not think," she answered, "that it will be possible for a long, long time. You will have to take me as a lodger whether you want to or not. I would not trust myself in a boat even with you, upon a sea like that."

"It will be high tide in half an hour," Andrew said, "and the sea will go down fast enough then."

"It may not," she answered hopefully. "I rather believe that there is another storm blowing up."

"There will be no dinner for you," he warned her.

"That I can endure cheerfully," she declared. "I am sick of dinners. I hate them. They come much too soon, and one has always the same things to eat. I am quite sure that I shall dine quite nicely with you, Mr. Andrew."

He glanced at his watch and looked out seaward. It was even as she had said. There were indications of another storm. Even while they stood there the large raindrops fell.

"We had better go in," Andrew said. "It is going to rain again."

She clapped her hands, and danced lightly back into the house. She subsided into his easy chair and clasped her hands over her head.

"Come and stand there on the hearthrug," she demanded, "and tell me stories—stories of fishing adventures and storms, and things that have happened to yourself. Never mind how ordinary they may seem. I want to hear them. Remember that everything is new to me. Everything is interesting." He accepted the inevitable at last, and they talked until the twilight filled the room. It was strange how much and yet how little she knew. The fascination of her worldly ignorance was a thing which grew continually upon him. Suddenly she burst into a little peal of laughter.

"I was wondering," she remarked, "whether they are waiting dinner for me. I can just imagine how frightened they all are."

"I had forgotten all about them," Andrew confessed. "Wait a moment."

He left the room and walked out on to the beach. The sea was still dashing its spray high over the roof of the little cottage. The stones outside were wet to within a few feet of his door. He looked across toward the mainland. Far away he fancied that he could see men carrying lanterns like will-o'-the-wisps, in that part of the marshes near the Hall. He retraced his steps to the sitting-room.

"I am afraid," he said, "that it will not be possible to take you back to-night. The sea is still too rough for my boat, and shows no sign of going down."

She clapped her hands.

"I am very glad," she declared frankly. "I would very much rather stay here than go back. Shall we go and see what there is for dinner? I can cook quite well. I learnt at the convent, but I have never had a chance to really try what I can do."

He smiled.

"Well," he said, "you can do exactly what you like with the contents of my larder, but so far as I am concerned, I must go."

"Go?" she repeated wonderingly. "If I cannot leave the island, surely you cannot!"

"Yes!" he answered. "There is another way. I am going to swim over to the mainland and let them know at the Hall where you are."

She was suddenly serious, serious as well as disappointed.

"You must not," she declared. "It is too dangerous. I will not have you try it. You must stay here with me. I am not used to being left alone. I should be very lonely indeed. You must please not think of going."

"Miss Jeanne," he said quietly, "there are many things which you do not know, and you must let me tell you this, that it is not possible for me to keep you here as my guest until to-morrow. You cannot leave the island, so I am going to. I can assure you that it is nothing whatever of a swim, and I shall get to the other side quite easily. Then I am going down to the village to get some dry clothes, and I shall go up to the Hall and talk to your stepmother."

"If you make me go back," she declared, "I shall run away the first time I have an opportunity, and if you will not have me, I dare say I can find some one else who has a room to let, who will."

"I am not your keeper," he answered, "but please don't do anything rash until I tell you what your stepmother says."

"It is you who are rash," she declared. "I do not think that I can let you go. I am afraid, and the water looks so cruel to-night."

He laughed as he stepped outside.

"I am going round to leave some orders with Mr. Berners' servant," he said, "and after that I am going. You must ring for anything you want, and the man will show you your room if you want to lie down. I dare say, though, that some one will come from the Hall presently. The sea will be calmer in a few hours' time."

She walked with him to the edge of the beach. When he drew off his coat and turned up his sleeves she trembled with anxiety.

"Oh, I am afraid," she muttered. "I don't like your going in. I don't like your doing this. I am sorry that I ever came."

He laughed a little scornfully, and plunged in. She watched his head appear and disappear, her heart beating fast all the time. Once she lost sight of it altogether and screamed. Almost immediately he came up to the surface again, and turning round waved his hand to her.

"I am all right," he sang out. "Going strong. It's quite easy."

A few minutes later she saw him wading, and directly afterwards he stood upon the sands opposite to her. He waved his hand. She put her fingers to her lips and threw him a kiss. He pretended not to notice, and started off toward the village, and her low laugh came floating to him in a momentary lull of the wind.

Half-way across the marshes he changed his course, clambered up a high bank on to the road, and turned toward the Hall. Barer than ever the great gaunt building seemed to stand out against the sky line, but from every window lights were flashing, and the windows of the dining-room seemed to reflect a perfect blaze of light. Andrew made his way to the back entrance, and entering unobserved, made his way up to his own room.

---

Dinner was over, and the little party of three were settling down to their coffee and cigarettes when the Princess' maid came down and whispered in her mistress' ear. The Princess turned to her host perplexed.

"Has any one seen anything of Jeanne?" she inquired. "Reynolds has just told me that she has not returned at all."

"I thought you said that she was lying down with a headache," Cecil interposed eagerly.

"I thought so myself," the Princess answered. "Early this afternoon she told me that she had no sleep last night, that she had a very bad headache, and that she was going to bed. As a matter of fact she went out almost at once, and has not returned." Cecil was already on his way to the door.

"We will send out into the village at once," he said, "and some one must go on the marshes. There are plenty of places there where it would have been absolutely unsafe for her in such a storm as we have had. Ring the bell, Forrest, will you?"

Andrew stepped in and closed the door behind him.

"It is not necessary," he said. "I can tell you all about Miss Le Mesurier."

CHAPTER XIX

There was a moment's breathless silence as Andrew stood there looking in upon the little group. Then he left his position at the door and came up to the table round which they were seated.

"Madam," he said to the Princess, "your daughter is safe. She came down to the island this afternoon, and was unable to return owing to the storm."

The Princess gave a little sigh of relief.

"Foolish child!" she said. "But where is she now, Mr. Andrew?"

"She is still at the island," Andrew answered. "It was impossible for her to leave, so I came here to tell you of her whereabouts."

"It was extremely thoughtful of you," the Princess said graciously.

"If Miss Le Mesurier was unable to leave the island, how was it that you came?" Major Forrest asked, looking at Andrew through his eyeglass as though he were some sort of natural curiosity.

"I swam over," Andrew answered. "It was a very short distance."

It was about this time that they all noticed the fact that Andrew was wearing clothes of an altogether different fashion to the fisherman's garb in which they had seen him previously. The Princess looked at him perplexed. Cecil felt instinctively that the event which he had most dreaded was about to happen.

"And you came up here purposely to relieve our minds, Mr. Andrew," the Princess said. "Really it is most kind of you. I wish that there were some way—"

She hesitated, a slight note of question in her tone, expressed also by her upraised eyebrows.

"I had a further reason for coming," Andrew said slowly. "I am very sorry indeed to seem inhospitable or discourteous, but there is a certain matter which must be cleared up, and at once. I refer to the disappearance of Lord Ronald."

There was an instant's dead silence. Then Forrest, with white face, leaned across the table.

"Who the devil are you?" he asked.

"I am Andrew de la Borne," Andrew answered, "the owner of these poor estates, which I am very well content to leave for the greater part of the time in my brother's care, only that he is young, and is liable to make mistakes. He has made one, sir, I fear, in offering you the hospitality of the Red Hall."

Forrest rose slowly to his feet. The Princess held out her hand as though to beg him not to speak. She turned towards Andrew.

"I do not understand, sir," she said, "why you have chosen to masquerade under another name, and why you come now to insult your brother's guests in such a manner. Is what he says true, Cecil?" she added, turning towards him. "Is this man your brother?"

"Yes!" Cecil answered sullenly. "He tells the truth. It is just like him to make such a thundering idiot of himself."

"I beg your pardon," Andrew answered. "It is not I, Cecil, who desire to come here and say these things to any guest of yours. It is you who are sheltering under this roof one man at least to whom you should never have offered your hospitality. The Duke of Westerham, who has been my guest for the last few days, told me all that one needs to know about you, sir, and your career."

Forrest asked no more questions. He turned to Cecil.

"Mr. De la Borne," he said, "I have understood that you were my host, and I appeal to you. Is this person indeed your elder brother?"

"Yes!" Cecil answered.

"You know what this means," Forrest continued, speaking to Cecil. "I cannot remain in this house any longer. I could only accept hospitality from those who have at least learned to comport themselves as gentlemen."

Andrew smiled.

"I will not grudge you, sir," he said, "any reasonable excuse for leaving this house as quickly as may be, but before you go, I insist upon knowing what has become of Lord Ronald."

Cecil turned towards his brother angrily.

"I am sick of hearing about Engleton!" he declared. "I tell you that he left here, Andrew, on Wednesday morning, and caught the 9-5 train to London, or at any rate to Peterboro'. Whether he went north, south, east, or west, is no concern of ours. We only know that he promised to come back and has not come."

"There is more to be learnt then," Andrew answered. "How did he get to Lynn Station that morning?"

"In the motor car," Cecil answered.

"Who drove it?" Andrew asked.

"Major Forrest," Cecil answered.

"It is a lie!" Andrew declared. "The car never went a hundred yards beyond the gates. I know that for a fact."

Again there was silence. The Princess intervened.

"Mr. Andrew," she began—"I beg your pardon, Mr. De la Borne—supposing Lord Ronald did wish to keep his departure and the manner of it a great secret, why should it trouble you? You don't suppose, I presume, that there has been a fight, or anything of that sort?"

"I only know," Andrew answered, "that the brother of one of my dearest friends has disappeared from this house, after spending several days in the company of a man of bad reputation. That is quite enough for me. I am determined to get to the bottom of the matter."

"It is a very little matter, after all," the Princess said calmly. "Perhaps—"

She hesitated, and looked at the two other men.

"Perhaps," she continued slowly, "it would be as well to tell you the truth."

"If you do not, madam," Andrew answered, "it is more than probable that I shall speedily elicit it."

Both Forrest and Cecil seemed stricken speechless, and before they could recover themselves the Princess had commenced her story, talking with easy and convincing fluency.

"Lord Ronald," she said, "did leave here at the time you and the Duke have been told, and Major Forrest did try to drive him in the motor to Lynn Station. When he found that that was impossible, that they could not get the engine to go, Lord Ronald left his luggage here and walked to Wells. That is the last we have heard of him. He asked that his luggage should be sent to his rooms in London, and we sent it off the next day. He left here on good terms with everybody, but he told us distinctly that the business on which he was summoned away was of a very unpleasant nature. I think that some one was trying to blackmail him. Now you can make what inquiries you like, but I am very certain of one thing, that anything you may discover is more likely to bring discredit upon Lord Ronald himself than anybody else."

"Madam," Andrew said, "your story, of course, I am bound to accept as the truth, but I must tell you frankly that I shall pass it on to the Duke, who will take up his inquiries from the point you name. If he finds that the facts do not correspond with what you have told me, I fear that the consequences will be disagreeable for all of you."

"Of what on earth do you suspect us?" Major Forrest asked sharply. "Do you think that we have made away with Engleton? Why should we? We may be the adventurers you delicately suggest, but at least we should have an object in our crimes. Engleton had not a ten-pound note of ready money with him. I know that for a fact, because I lent him some money to pay his chauffeur's wages when he sent him away."

"You are perhaps holding some of his IOU's?" Andrew asked.

"I certainly am," Forrest answered, "and the sooner I hear from him the better. If you are really the owner of this house, I shall leave to-morrow morning."

Andrew bowed coldly.

"That," he said, "would certainly seem to be your best course. On the contrary," he added, "I am not altogether sure that I am justified in letting you go."

The Princess frowned at him indignantly.

"You talk nonsense, my dear Mr. Andrew, or Mr. Andrew de la Borne," she said. "If you tried to retain Major Forrest on such a cock and bull pretext, you would be probably very soon sorry for it. Besides you have no power to do anything of the sort."

"Madam," Andrew answered, "I am a magistrate, and I could sign a warrant on the spot. I do not, however, feel justified in going to such lengths. I feel sure that if Major Forrest is wanted, we shall be able to find him."

"Of course you will," the Princess intervened calmly. "Men like Major Forrest do not run away just because some one chooses to make a ridiculous charge against them. If only I could get Jeanne, I would leave myself to-night."

"My dear Princess," Cecil said, "I hope that you do not mean it. My brother has said more than he means, I am sure."

"I have said less." Andrew replied. "I have the very best reasons for believing that Major Forrest has lied his way into whatever friendship he may have had with Lord Ronald and my brother."

Forrest moved toward the door.

"Mr. De la Borne," he said to Cecil, "you will forgive me if I decline to remain here to be insulted by your brother."

The Princess followed him from the room. Cecil and Andrew were alone.

"D—n you, Andrew!" the former said, turning upon him, whitefaced, and with a sort of petulant anger. "Why do you come here and spoil things like this?"

Andrew stood upon the hearthrug, and looked at his brother, black and forbidding.

"Cecil," he said, "my life has been spoilt by paying for your excesses. Ever since I came of age I have been hampered all the time by paying your debts and providing you with money. I even let you pose here as the master of the Red Hall because it pleased you. I have had enough of it. If you run up any more debts, you must pay them yourself. I am master here and I intend to remain so."

Cecil was suddenly pale.

"Do you mean," he asked, "that you intend to remain here now?"

Andrew hesitated.

"Your guests are leaving," he said. "Why not?"

"But they may not go until to-morrow or the next day," Cecil said. "I cannot turn them out."

Andrew stood for a moment looking thoughtfully at the door.

"They cannot stay more than a day," he said, "if Major Forrest is really their friend. In any case, I shall not return until they are gone."

Cecil's face cleared a little, but he was still perplexed.

"They had just promised," he said, "to stay another week."

"If you wish to entertain the Princess and Miss Le Mesurier," Andrew said, "and they are willing to stop after what has passed, I have nothing, of course, to say against it. But the man Forrest I will not have here. If ever cheat and coward were written in a man's face, your friend carries the marks in his."

"He has won nothing to speak of from me here," Cecil declared.

"You are probably too small game," Andrew answered. "How about Engleton? Did he lose?"

"I am not sure," Cecil answered. "Not very much, if anything."

The Princess came rustling back. She held her little spaniel up to her cheek, and she affected not to notice the somewhat strained attitude of the two men. She went at once to Andrew.

"Mr. De la Borne," she said, "I think that you have been very unjust and very rude to Major Forrest, who is an old friend of mine. I am sure that you have been misled, and I am sure that some day you will ask his pardon."

Andrew bowed slightly, and looked her straight in the face.

"Princess," he said, "may I ask how long you have known the gentleman who has just left us?"

"For a very great many years," she answered. "Why?"

"Are you sure of your own knowledge," Andrew asked, "that he is really a person of good repute and against whom there have been no scandalous reports?"

"I do not listen to gossip," the Princess answered. "Major Forrest goes everywhere in London, and I have seen nothing in his deportment at any time to induce me to withdraw my friendship."

"I fancy, then," Andrew said, "that some day you will find you have been a little deceived."

"What about Lord Ronald?" the Princess asked. "Perhaps, Mr. De la Borne, you think that we are all a little company of adventurers. This is such a likely spot for our operations, isn't it?"

"Lord Ronald," Andrew said, "is the brother of my old friend, and he is, of course, above suspicion, but Lord Ronald appears to have left you somewhat abruptly, I might almost say mysteriously."

"He was here for some time," the Princess said, "and he is coming back."

"In the meantime," Andrew continued, "he appears to have vanished from the face of the earth."

The Princess turned away carelessly.

"That," she said, "is scarcely our affair. I have not the slightest doubt but that he will turn up again."

"If it should turn out that I am mistaken," Andrew said stiffly, "I should be glad to ask your pardons, but from my present information I can only say I do not care to extend the hospitality of my house to Major Forrest, nor do I consider him a fit associate, madam, for you and your step-daughter."

"May I ask," the Princess inquired, "who Major Forrest's traducers have been?"

"My information," Andrew answered, "comes from the Duke of Westerham. I have every reason to believe that the case against him has been understated."

"The Duke," Cecil declared, "is a pig-headed old fool!"

Andrew shrugged his shoulders.

"I have always found him a man of remarkably keen judgment," he said.

"What are you going to do about Jeanne?" the Princess asked, changing the subject abruptly.

"I should suggest," Andrew answered, "that you have a maid pack a bag and prepare to go with me over to the island early in the morning. There is no chance to cross before then, as the tide would be high."

"But how nervous she will be there all alone!" the Princess exclaimed.

"My servant is there," Andrew answered, "and also an old woman who cooks for me. They will, I am sure, do everything they can to make her comfortable. I shall go myself and bring her back here as soon as it is daylight."

"We are giving you a great deal of trouble, I am afraid, Mr. De la Borne," the Princess said stiffly. "To-morrow, as soon as my maid can pack, we will return to London."

Andrew bowed as he turned to leave the room.

"I trust," he said, "that you will not let my presence interfere with your plans. I shall remain on the island myself to-morrow, after I have brought your daughter back."

CHAPTER XX

Jeanne awoke the next morning to find herself between lavender scented sheets in a small iron bedstead, with a soft sea-wind blowing in through the half-open window. Her maid was ready to wait upon her, and her bath was of salt water fresh from the sea. She descended to find Andrew at work in the garden, the sun already high in the heavens, and the sea as blue and placid as though the storm of the night before were a thing long past and forgotten.

"I am never going away," she declared, as they sat at breakfast. "I take your rooms, Monsieur Andrew. I will import as many chaperons as you please, but I will not leave this island."

"I am afraid," he answered smiling, "that there are other people who would have something to say about that. Your stepmother is already anxious. I have promised that you shall be back at the Hall by ten o'clock."

The gaiety suddenly faded from her face. Her lips, which had been curved in laughter, quivered.

"You mean that?" she faltered.

"Most assuredly," he answered. "I have no place for lodgers here. As a matter of fact, if you knew the truth, you would admit that your staying here is quite impossible."

"Well," she said, "I should like to know the truth. Suppose you tell it me."

"I must confess, then," Andrew answered, "that I am somewhat of a fraud. Berners was my friend, not my lodger, and I am Andrew de la Borne, Cecil's elder brother."

She looked at him for several moments steadily.

"I think that you might have told me," was all she said.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Why?" he asked, a little brusquely. "I am not of your world, or your stepmother's. When Cecil told me that he had invited some of his fashionable friends down here to stay, I begged him to leave me out of it. I chose to retire here, and I preferred not to see any of you. Mine are country ways, Miss Le Mesurier. I am at heart what I pretended to be, fisherman, countryman, yokel, call me what you will. The other side of life, Cecil's side, doesn't appeal to me a bit. I felt that it would be more comfortable for you people and for me, if I kept out of the way."

"You class me with them," she remarked quietly, "a little ruthlessly. I think you forget that as yet I have not chosen my way in life."

"That is true," he answered, "but how can you help but choose what every one of those who call themselves your friends regards as inevitable. You must dance in many ballrooms, and make your bow before the great ones of the earth. It is a part of the penalty that you must pay for your name and riches. All that I can wish you is that you lose as little of yourself as possible in the days that lie before you."

"I thank you," she answered quietly. "You will let me know when you are ready to take me back."

"Have I offended you?" he asked, as they rose from the table. "I am clumsy, I know, and the words do not come readily to my mouth. But after all, you must understand."

"Yes," she said sadly, "I do understand."

They went down to the beach and he helped her into the boat. Her maid sat by her side, and he rowed them across with a few powerful strokes.

"Storm and sunshine," he remarked, "follow one another here as swiftly as in any corner of the world. Yesterday we had wind and thunder and rain. To-day, look! The sky is cloudless, the birds are singing everywhere upon the marshes, the waves can do no more than ripple in upon the sands. Will you walk across the marshes, Miss Jeanne, or will you come to the village and wait while I send for a carriage?"

"We will walk," she answered. "It may be for the last time."

The maid fell behind. Andrew and his companion, who seemed smaller and slimmer than ever by his side, started on their tortuous way, here and there turning to the right and to the left to follow the course of some tidal stream, or avoid the swampy places. The faint odour of wild lavender was mingled with the brackish scent of the sea. The ground was soft and spongy beneath their feet, and a breeze as soft as a caress blew in their faces. Up before them always, gaunt and bare, surrounded by its belts of weather-stricken trees, stood the Red Hall. Andrew looked toward it gloomily.

"Do you wonder," he asked, "that a man is sometimes depressed who is born the heir to a house like that, and to fortunes very similar?"

"Are you poor?" she asked him. "I thought perhaps you were, as your brother tried to make love to me."

He frowned impatiently at her words.

"For Heaven's sake, child," he said, "don't be so cynical! Don't fancy that every kind word that is spoken to you is spoken for your wealth. There are sycophants enough in the world, Heaven knows, but there are men there as well. Give a few the credit of being honest. Try and remember that you are—"

He looked at her and away again toward the sea.

"That you are," he repeated, "young enough and attractive enough to win kind words for your own sake."

"Then," she whispered, leaning towards him, "I do not think that I am very fortunate."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because," she answered, "one person who might say kind things to me, and whom my money would never influence a little bit in the world, does not say them."

"Are you sure," he asked, "that you believe that there is any one in the world who would be content to take you without a penny?"

She shook her head.

"Not that," she said sadly. "I am not what you call conceited enough for that, but I would like to believe that I might have a kind word or two on my own account."

She tried hard to see his face, but he kept it steadfastly turned away. She sighed. Only a few yards behind the maid was walking.

"Mr. Andrew," she said, "it was you whom I meant. Won't you say something nice to me for my own sake?"

They were nearing the Hall now, and it seemed natural enough that he should hold her hand for a minute in his.

"I will tell you," he said quietly, "that your coming has been a pleasure, and your going will be a pain, and I will tell you that you have left an empty place that no one else can fill. You have made what our people here call the witch music upon the marshes for me, so that I shall never walk here again as long as I live without hearing it and thinking of you."

"Is that all?" she whispered.

He pretended not to hear her.

"I am nearly double your age," he said, "and I have lived an idle, perhaps a worthless, life. I have done no harm. My talents, if I have any, have certainly been buried. If I had met you out in the world, your world, well, I might have taught myself to forget—"

He broke off abruptly in his sentence. Cecil stood before them, suddenly emerged from the hand-gate leading into the Hall gardens. "At last!" he exclaimed, taking Jeanne by the hands. "The Princess is distracted. We have all been distracted. How could you make us so unhappy?"

She drew her hands away coldly.

"I fancy that my stepmother," she said, "will have survived my absence. I was caught in a storm. I expect that your brother has already told you about it."

He looked from one to the other.

"So you have told her, Andrew," he said simply.

Andrew nodded. The three walked up toward the house in somewhat constrained silence. She was trying her hardest to make Andrew look at her, and he was trying his hardest to resist. The Princess came out to them. The morning was warm, and she was wearing a white wrapper. Her toilette was not wholly completed, but she was sufficiently picturesque.

"My dear Jeanne," she cried, "you have nearly sent us mad with anxiety. How could you wander off like that!"

Jeanne stood a little apart. She avoided the Princess' hands. She stood upon the soft turf with her hands clasped, her cheeks very pale, her eyes bright with some inward excitement.

"Do you wish me to answer that question?" she said.

The Princess stared.

"What do you mean, my child?" she exclaimed.

"You ask me," Jeanne said, "why I went wandering off into the marshes. I will tell you. It is because I am unhappy. It is because I do not like the life into which you have brought me, nor the people with whom we live. I do not like late hours, supper parties and dinner parties, dances where half the people are bourgeois, and where all the men make stupid love to me. I do not like the shops, the vulgar shop people, fashionable clothes, and fashionable promenading. I am tired of it already. If I am rich, why may I not buy the right to live as I choose?"

The Princess rarely allowed herself to show surprise. At this moment, however, she was completely overcome.

"What is it you want, then, child?" she demanded.

"I should like," Jeanne answered, "to buy Mr. De la Borne's house upon the island, and live there, with just a couple of maids, and my books. I should like some friends, of course, but I should like to find them for myself, amongst the country people, people whom I could trust and believe in, not people whose clothes and manners and speech are all hammered out into a type, and whose real self is so deeply buried that you cannot tell whether they are honest or rogues. That is what I should like, stepmother, and if you wish to earn my gratitude, that is how you will let me live."

The Princess stared at the child as though she were a lunatic.

"Jeanne," she exclaimed weakly, "what has become of you?"

"Nothing," Jeanne answered, "only you asked me a question, and I felt an irresistible desire to answer you truthfully. It would have come sooner or later."

Andrew turned slowly toward the girl, who stood looking at her stepmother with flushed cheeks and quivering lips.

"Miss Le Mesurier," he said, "on one condition I will sell you the island, but on only one."

"And that is?" she asked.

The Princess recovered herself just in time, and sailed in between them.

"Mr. De la Borne," she said, "my daughter is too young for such conversations. For two years she is under my complete guidance. She must obey me just as though she were ten years older and married, and I her husband. The law has given me absolute control over her. You understand that yourself, don't you, Jeanne?"

"Yes," Jeanne answered quietly, "I understand."

"Go indoors, please," the Princess said. "I have something to say to Mr. De la Borne."

"And I, too," Jeanne said. "Let me stay and say it. I will not be five minutes."

The Princess pointed toward the door.

"I will not have it," she said coldly. "Cecil, take my daughter indoors. I insist upon it."

She turned away unwillingly. The Princess took Andrew by the arm and led him to a more distant seat.

"Now, if you please, my dear Mr. Andrew," she said, "will you tell me what it is that you have done to my foolish little girl?"

CHAPTER XXI

The Princess arranged her skirts so that they drooped gracefully, and turned upon her companion with one of those slow mysterious smiles, which many people described but none could imitate.

"Mr. De la Borne," she said, "I can talk to you as I could not talk to your brother, because you are an older and a wiser man. You may not have seen much of the world, but you are at any rate not a young idiot like Cecil. Will you listen to me, please?"

"It seems to me," Andrew answered drily, "that I am already doing so."

"I am not going to ask you," she continued, "whether you are in love with my little girl or not, because the whole thing is too ridiculous. I have no doubt that she has some sort of a fancy for you. It is evident that she has. I want you to remember that she is fresh from school, that as yet she has not entered life, and that a few months ago she did not know a man from a gate-post."

"An admirable simile," Andrew murmured.

"What I want you to understand is," the Princess continued, "that as yet she cannot possibly be in a position to make up her mind as to her future. She has seen nothing of the world, and what she has seen has been the least favourable side. She has a perfectly enormous fortune, so ridiculously tied up that although I am never out of debt and always borrowing money, I cannot touch a penny of it, not even with her help. Very soon she will be of age, and the amount of her fortune will be known. I can assure you that it will be a surprise to every one."

Andrew bowed his head indifferently.

"Very possibly," he answered, "and yet, madam, if your daughter has the wisdom to see that the matter of her wealth is after all but a trifle amongst the conditions which make for happiness, why should you deny her the benefits of that wisdom?"

"My dear friend," she continued earnestly, "for this reason—because Jeanne to-day is too young to choose for herself. She has not got over that sickly sentimental age, when a girl makes a hero of anything unusual in the shape of a man, and finds a sort of unwholesome satisfaction in making sacrifices for his sake. It may be that Jeanne may, after all, look to what you call the simple life for happiness. Well, if she does that after a year or so, well and good. But she shall not do so with my consent, without indeed my downright opposition, until she has had an opportunity of testing both sides, of weighing the matter thoroughly from every point of view. Do you not agree with me, Mr. De la Borne?"

"You speak reasonably, madam," he assented.

"Jeanne," she continued, "has perhaps charmed you a little. She is, after all, just now a child of nature. She is something of an artist, too. Beautiful places and sights and sounds appeal to her.

"She is ready, with her imperfect experience, to believe that there is nothing greater or better worth cultivating in life. But I want you to consider the effects of heredity. Jeanne comes from restless, brilliant people. Her mother was a leader of society, a pleasure-loving, clever, unscrupulous woman. Her father was a financier and a diplomat, many-sided, versatile, but with as complex a disposition as any man I ever met. Jeanne will ripen as the years go on; something of her mother, something of her father will appear. It is my place, knowing these things, to see that she does not make a fatal mistake. All that I say to you, Mr. De la Borne, is to let her go, to give her her chance, to let her see with both eyes before she does anything irremediable. I think that I may almost appeal to you, as a reasonable man and a gentleman, to help me in this."

Andrew de la Borne looked out through the wizened branches of his stunted trees, to the white-flecked sea rolling in below. The Princess was right. He knew that she was right. Those other thoughts were little short of madness. Jeanne was no coquette at heart, but she was a child. She had great responsibilities. She was turned into the world with a heavy burden upon her shoulders. It was not he or any man who could help her. She must fight her own battle, win or lose her own happiness. A few years' time might see her the wife of a great statesman or a great soldier, proud and happy to feel herself the means by which the man she loved might climb one step higher upon the great ladder of fame. How like a child's dream these few days upon the marshes, talking to one who was no more than a looker-on at the great things of life, must seem! He could imagine her thinking of them with a shiver as she remembered her escape. The Princess was right, she was very right indeed. He rose to his feet.

"Madam," he said, "I have not pretended to misunderstand you. I think that you have spoken wisely. Your stepdaughter must solve for herself the great riddle. It is not for any one of us to handicap her in her choice while she is yet a child."

"You are going, Mr. De la Borne?" she asked.

He pointed to a brown-sailed fishing-boat passing slowly down from the village toward the sea.

"That is one of my boats," he said. "I shall signal to her from the island to call for me. I need a change, and she is going out into the North Sea for five weeks' fishing."

The Princess held out her hand, and Andrew took it in his.

"You are a man," she said. "I wish there were more of your sort in the world where I live."

The Princess stood for a moment on the edge of the lawn, watching Andrew's tall figure as he strode across the marsh toward the village. Never once did he look back or hesitate on his swift, vigorous way. Then she sighed a little and turned away toward the house. After all, this was a man, although he was so far removed from the type she knew and understood.

Cecil was walking restlessly up and down the hall when she entered. He drew her eagerly into the library.

"Look here," he said, "Forrest declares that he is going. He is upstairs now packing his things."

"Your brother," the Princess answered, "scarcely left him much alternative."

"That's all very well," Cecil answered, "but if he goes I go. I am not going to be left here alone."

The Princess looked at him, and the colour came into his cheeks. It is never well for a man when he sees such a look upon a woman's face.

"It isn't that I'm afraid," Cecil declared. "I can stand any ordinary danger, but I am not going to be left shut up here alone, with the whole responsibility upon me. I couldn't do it. It wouldn't be fair to ask me."

"There is no fresh news, I suppose?" the Princess asked.

"None," Cecil answered gloomily. "If only we could see our way to the end of it, I shouldn't mind."

The Princess was thoughtful for a few moments.

"Well," she said, "I don't know, after all, if Forrest need go just yet. Your brother has made up his mind to go fishing for several weeks. I think that he is going to start to-day."

"Do you mean it?" Cecil exclaimed, incredulously.

The Princess nodded.

"He has been philandering with Jeanne," she said, "and his magnificent conscience is taking him out into the North Sea."

Cecil's features relaxed. After all, though he played at maturity, he was little more than a boy.

"Fancy old Andrew!" he exclaimed. "Gone on a child like Miss Jeanne, too! Well, anyhow, that makes it all right about Forrest staying, doesn't it?"

"He shall stop," the Princess answered slowly. "Jeanne and I will stay, too, until Monday. Perhaps by that time—"

"By that time," Cecil repeated, "something may have happened."