Returning by way of wooded Baarn, we spun back to Amsterdam when violet shadows lengthened over golden meadows, and gauzy mist-clouds floated above the canal, burnished to silver by the sunset.

It was too late to do anything but dine and plan for to-morrow, which I had mapped out in my mind, subject to approval. But I let them all talk, as I often do, without saying anything until they turn to me with a question.

"There's an island which people say is wonderful, and you mustn't miss it," remarked the Chaperon. "But I've forgotten the name."

"Why is it wonderful?" asked Miss Rivers.

"I can't remember. But there was something different about it from what you can see anywhere else."

"Dear me, how awkward. How are you to find it?" sighed Phyllis.

"Ask Alb to rapidly mention all islands in Holland, and perhaps it will come back to you," suggested the Mariner. "Begin with A, Alb."

"Not worth while wasting the letters of the alphabet," said I. "Lady MacNairne (the name invariably sticks in my throat) means Marken."

"That's it!" exclaimed the Chaperon. "How could you guess?"

"There's only one island that people talk about like that," I replied. "It's the great show place; and it's like going to the theater. The curtain rings up when the audience arrives, and rings down when it departs. You'll see to-morrow."

"To-morrow?"

"My idea was to take you there to-morrow, unless you prefer another place."

I looked at the mistress of the boat, and no hardness came into her eyes. The contrast between her manner yesterday and her manner since this morning was so marked that, instead of being wholly pleased, I was half alarmed. It seemed too good to be true that her feelings should have changed, and that the sun should continue to shine.

"Why, certainly, let's go to Marken," she said. "I was thinking of Broek-in-Waterland, as I read it was near, and the sweetest place in Holland; however, we can go by-and-by, if——"

"But my plan includes Broek-in-Waterland, gives you a glimpse of Monnikendam, takes you to Marken, and winds up at Volendam, beloved of artists," said I. "I don't believe we'll find it easy to tear Starr from Volendam."

So it was settled, and every one agreed to be ready at ten o'clock next morning. But ten o'clock came, and no Nell, no Phyllis, no Chaperon.

My car was at the door, as I intended to save time by motoring to the Club harbor, where the yacht was lying; and when Starr and I had waited in the hall for some minutes, Aunt Fay appeared.

"Haven't the girls come in yet with Tibe?" she asked. There was a note of anxiety in her voice, though, owing to the fact that the blue spectacles are very large, the wings of gray hair droop very low, a perky bow of white gauzy stuff worn under the chin comes up very high, and the face is very small, it is difficult to tell by the lady's expression what she may be feeling; indeed, there is remarkably little room for an expression to be revealed; which adds to the mystery of the Chaperon's personality.

"Are they out?" asked Starr.

"Yes. But they promised to be back at a quarter to ten, without fail, or I shouldn't have let them go. Tibe's had no breakfast, and he must have his teeth brushed before we start. Oh dear, I'm afraid something's happened."

"For goodness' sake, don't be excited. You get such an American accent when you're excited," whispered the Mariner, fiercely. "Be brave. Remember you're a Scotswoman."

"If I lose Tibe, I shall be a madwoman," she retorted.

"You won't lose him. Alb and I care at least as much for the girls as you do for your dog, and we're not worrying——"

"That's different. The girls don't belong to you," almost wept the tiny creature. "You haven't fed them, and brushed them, and washed their feet every day of their lives since they were a few months old, as I have with Tibe, and if you're not very nice to me, you never will."

"We never dared hope for quite as much as that," said Starr, "but we are being nice to you. What do you want us to do? They're half an hour behind time. Shall we give an order for the Town Crier? I dare say there's one in use still, as this is Holland."

"If you're sarcastic, Ronald, I'll leave you the moment I have my darling Tibe again," replied the Chaperon, and the threat reduced Ronald to crushed silence.

"What took them out so early in the morning?" I asked.

"Oh, Tibe escaped from my room for a minute, and was eating a boot which he found at somebody's door—a horrid, elastic-sided boot: I'm sure it couldn't have been good for him—and the two girls brought him back. They were going out for one last glimpse of that quaint, hidden square you call 'the village,' which they longed to see again, and they asked if they should take Tibe, so I said yes, as he's fond of driving.

"Oh, they were driving?" said I.

"Yes. They could easily have been in long ago. There must have been an accident. Miss Rivers is always so depressingly prompt. Such a strange girl! She considers it quite a sin to break a promise, even to a man, and she seems actually to like telling the truth."

We soothed the Chaperon's fears as well as we could; but when half-past ten came, and there were still no signs of the missing ones, we both began to be troubled.

"If they don't appear in ten minutes, I'll drive slowly in the direction by which they should return," I said; but the words had hardly left my lips when the girls walked into the hall, with Tibe. Both charming faces were flushed, and it was evident that something exciting had happened. But whatever it was, nobody was the worse for it. Tibe flew to his mistress, knocking down a child, and almost upsetting an old gentleman by darting unexpectedly between his legs, while the girls rushed into explanations.

"We're so sorry to have kept you waiting, but we've had such an adventure!" cried Nell. "We were driving back from the 'village,' when Tibe gave a leap and jumped out of the cab before we could hold him."

"We were terrified," broke in Phyllis.

"And he disappeared in the most horribly mysterious way," finished Nell.

"We thought some one in the crowd must have stolen him, so we stopped the cab——"

"And began tearing about looking for him, asking every human being in every known language except Dutch, if they'd seen a dog, or a chien, or a hund——"

"But nobody understood, so we went into a lot of shops, and he wasn't in any of them——"

"And we were in despair. We shouldn't have dared come back without him——"

"I should think not!" cut in the Chaperon.

"And we were on the way to the nearest police-station, with a dear old gentleman who could speak English, and a whole procession of extraneous creatures who couldn't, when we saw Tibe, calmly driving in a carriage with——"

"A strange man, and——"

"He never so much as looked at us, but we were sure we couldn't be mistaken, at least Nell was; so we deserted our old gentleman, and began running after Tibe's carriage, shrieking for it to stop."

"Naturally, every one thought we were mad; but we didn't care, and at last the man in the carriage realized we were after him. If he hadn't stopped, we should have known that he'd deliberately stolen Tibe; but he did stop, and we said, both together, it was our dog."

"The man took off his hat, and answered in English, such a nice man, and quite good-looking, with a big mustache, and quick-tempered blue eyes. He said that the first thing he knew, Tibe had jumped into his cab, and he had no idea where he came from, as he'd been reading in a guide-book; but the strangest thing was, he felt certain Tibe had belonged to him when a puppy; only his dog wasn't named Tibe, but John Bull—Bully for short, and he sold him to an American, because it turned out his wife didn't like bulldogs in the house, she thought them too ugly."

"What a cat!" interpolated the Chaperon.

"Could it be possible that Tibe ever was his?" asked Nell. "He sold his dog just a year ago, when he was six months old——"

"I bought Tibe ten months ago, poor lamb, for a song, because he was ill—he'd been seasick on a long voyage, so I nursed him up, and see what he is now," said Tibe's mistress. "It may be he'd belonged to this man, for it's always the strangest things that are true. Tibe has a wonderful memory for faces; but I'm sure if I'd been with him, he wouldn't have run away from me for twenty old masters."

"The second queerest thing in the adventure is, that this 'old master' must be some relation of yours, Lady MacNairne," said Nell. "He gave us his card. See, here it is." She handed it to the Chaperon, who gazed at it through her blue spectacles for a moment without speaking; then passed it to Starr. "Merely—a relation by marriage," said she. "Quite a distant relation. I never saw this gentleman myself; but I believe you've met him, haven't you, dear Ronny?"

There is plenty of room on the Mariner's face for expression. He grew red, and his eyebrows were eloquent as he looked at the card. "Oh—er—yes, I've seen him, I think," he mumbled, "when I was in Scotland last. Odd he happens to be here."

"He only arrived this morning, on important business," Nell explained. "If it weren't for that, he would have asked to bring us back to our hotel, but it was something that had to be attended to without a moment's delay, so he was obliged to leave us at once. He was on the way to the Hotel de l'Europe, where he hoped to find the people he'd come to seek."

No need for me to see that card. I knew well who was the hero of the girls' adventure, and would have guessed without the aid of Starr's expression. He saw that I guessed, and turned to me with a look of appeal.

"Well, at all events, Tibe is safe," I said, "and we ought to start, if we're to get through our program to-day. Ladies, is your luggage ready? I'll see that Tibe has a nice bone instead of breakfast. He can eat it in the car, going to the boat; and as it's dusty, you had better put on your motor-veils when you leave the hotel. Starr and I are going to wear goggles."

"Alb," said Starr, as the ladies moved away, "you may have a bad heart, but you have a good head. Disguise and flight are our only hope. If Sir Alec should recognize me——"

("If he should recognize me," I echoed inwardly.)

"The game would be up."

"Speed, veils, and goggles may do the trick," said I.

"But afterwards? By Jove, what we're let in for!"

"We must set our wits to work. Change 'Lorelei's' name and disappear into space."

Five minutes later we were off, unrecognizable by our best friends, and Tibe well hidden, deeply interested in his bone at the bottom of the tonneau. But hardly were we away when Miss Rivers cried out——

"Oh, look, Nell; there's Sir Alec MacNairne. Oughtn't we to stop a minute, so that Lady MacNairne——"

"I'm afraid we haven't time," I said hastily, and put on speed, as much as I dared in traffic. We whizzed by a cab, and might have passed the gloomy-faced man who sat in it with his traveling-bag (hastily packed, I'll warrant) had not the two girls bowed.

Their faces were not to be recognized behind the small, triangular tale windows of the silk and lace motor-veils they bought in Haarlem; but their bow attracted Sir Alec MacNairne's attention, and those "quick-tempered blue eyes" of his looked the whole party over as he lifted his hat from his crisply curling auburn hair. He probably divined that the two veiled figures must be the girls of his late adventure; and as he was now acquainted with them and with Tibe, there would be one less chance of our boat slipping away from under his nose, in case he got upon our track.

I realized that Sir Alec could not have been in Scotland when the fatal paragraph appeared, which reached our eyes only yesterday. If he had been, he could not have arrived in Amsterdam to-day. My idea now is that he must have come abroad in search of his wife, have seen the Paris Herald at some Continental resort, and have rushed off post-haste to Holland, expecting to find her.

Exactly why he should have chosen Amsterdam to begin his quest, is not so clear; but he must have had reason to hope that he might get news of Lady MacNairne and my (supposed) motor-boat here. Doubtless he will sooner or later come upon a clue. If he turns up at the Amstel to prosecute his inquiries, he may hear of Tibe, and of the two beautiful young ladies. Then he will put two and two together, and will be after us—as Starr's favorite expression is—"before we can say knife."

At present I have all the sensations of being a villain, with none of the advantages.