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."