"Maxime Dalahaide will never be dangerous to any man again on this earth—not even to himself, since the worst has happened to him that can happen," answered Loria.

"Strange if, although he is buried in a prison-land at the other end of the world, he might still, in a vague, dim way, be a rival to fear more than another," Kate reflected dreamily. Aloud she went on: "It seems ridiculous to say so, but I believe that Virginia is making a hero of him. She has never seen this man—she never can see him; yet his image—evolved from that portrait at the chateau which was his old home—may blur others nearer to her."

"Great heavens! You believe that?"

"I merely suggest it. The idea only occurred to me at this moment. But Virginia is certainly thinking of Maxime Dalahaide. To-day, she was reading a French book about Noumea. She hid it when I came into the room; but later I came across it by accident. Yes, she is thinking of him, but it is only a girl's foolish, romantic fancy, of course—a spoilt child, crying for the moon, because it's the one thing that no adoring person can get for her. I shouldn't worry about it much, if I were you. Indeed, perhaps she sees herself that she is not very wise, and wants to forget. Now she has set her heart on a yachting trip; but you must not speak of it to her or the others, for she asked me not to tell."

"She gives me little enough chance to speak of anything. A short time ago she would not have cared for a yachting trip, unless I were to be of the party. Now, I suppose, her wish is to be rid of me."

"Her wish is also to be rid of me."

"You are not to go?"

"Not if Virginia can make a decent excuse to leave me behind."

"Who, then, goes with her?"

"Her half-brother, and Sir Roger Broom. She isn't even going to take a maid."

"Heavens! It is Sir Roger Broom, then, who will win her!"

"I don't know what to think. She has refused him; he is many years older than she, and she has known him since she was a child, for Sir Roger went often to America while her father—his cousin—was alive. Why should she suddenly make up her mind to marry him? He was her guardian during her minority, or what remained of it after her father's death; now she has had her one-and-twentieth birthday, and is her own mistress. I fancied that she intended to remain so for a time, unless she lost her head—or her heart—and Sir Roger, nice as he is, is scarcely the man to make a girl like Virginia Beverly do either. Still, I don't understand the yachting trip. It is in every way mysterious; and since you have asked my advice, it is this: find out where they are going, and appear there, as if by chance. By that time our spoiled beauty's mind may have changed."

"Won't you tell me where they are going?"

"I would if I could." This was true, since Kate was sure that, change as Virginia might, she would never return to her brief, ballroom fancy for the Italian. "I hinted at Naples, Greece, and Egypt, and Virginia answered that it would be 'something of the sort'—answered evasively, saying nothing was decided yet; and so the conversation would have ended if George Trent hadn't come bursting in, very excited, exclaiming before he saw me that he'd got hold of exactly the right steam yacht, with four cannon."

Loria started like a sensitive woman. "A yacht with four cannon! What can they want with cannon?"

"I asked if they were fitting out for pirates, and Mr. Trent assured me that the cannon being on board was a mere accident; they would not have them removed, but they had no intention of making use of them. Still, there's no doubt that there's some mystery behind this yachting expedition. I can't make it out at all. Whether it is Mr. Trent's plan——"

"But he would not wish to go without you."

"A few days ago, perhaps not. But others besides Virginia have changed. That day when we rode up the Valley of the Shadow, as they call it, was destined to be an eventful day for us all."

"You mean——"

"I mean that George Trent is a different man since he went to the Chateau de la Roche."

A dark flush rose to Loria's forehead. "He met Madeleine Dalahaide?"

"One might think, from your expression and accent, that you were jealous."

"One would think wrongly then. A man can't be in love with two women at the same time."

"Can't he? I wasn't sure. Men are strange; perhaps there's something of the dog in the manger about them, at times. At all events, George Trent is much interested in the yachting trip, and he doesn't want me to go. Perhaps Miss Dalahaide is to be of the party; and in that case I should be the odd woman. Not that it matters to me. George was pleasant to flirt with but I should not marry again, unless I married money. Virginia's great fortune comes from her father, George's step-father, who was jealous of the mother's affection for the first husband's son, and disliked him. George will accept nothing from Virginia, and has only what his mother could leave him—a miserable five thousand dollars a year."

Loria scarcely listened. His level black brows were drawn together. "She was reading a book about Noumea," he said slowly. "What if—no, it is impossible—impossible!"

"What is impossible? If I am to help you, you must have no secrets from me."

"She could not hope, if she went there, to see him. Bah! The bare thought is monstrous."

"It is a little far-fetched," said Kate. "I should think the adventure they are undertaking will be no more startling than an attempt to reach the Second Cataract. The cannon might be needed there, you know."

"That is true. But, Lady Gardiner, you must find out where they are going, and let me know. A hundred diamond serpents would not be enough to testify my gratitude. You mean to go with them?"

"If they will take me."

"They must take you. They must! You are my only hope, the only link that will be left between me and Virginia Beverly. Listen! We are talking frankly to each other, you and I. We never thought to be such friends—but we are friends, and must trust each other to succeed. You often speak, half-jestingly, of being poor. I have money—I don't say enough; who has enough? But I am not a poor man. Watch Virginia for me; watch Sir Roger Broom. Let me know where this yacht is taking you, whom she carries, all that happens on board of her. Advise me, from what you see of passing events; and for all these services, worth an inestimable sum to me, I will give you what I can afford—say, a thousand pounds. You shall have half down the day you start, and the other half the day that you return."

"You are generous; and—I will be loyal," said Kate. "It will not be my fault, I promise you, if the yacht sails without me. Now I must go. We must have been talking here for more than an hour, for Virginia's carriage, which she lent me, has just driven up to the door. Whenever there is a new development of this mystery, which interests us both, you shall know it. I wish I could take you up to Cap Martin with me, if you are ready to go that way, but perhaps it would be wiser not—especially as the victoria isn't my own."

Kate Gardiner had not been in the hotel an hour when a box was brought to her door by the Marchese Loria's valet. Inside was the diamond serpent. She told herself that she had done a very good afternoon's work.

* * * * *

Soon every one knew that the American heiress and beauty, Miss Virginia Beverly, had bought, for twenty thousand pounds, the famous steam yacht which the mad Spanish Prince d'Almidares had used as a despatch boat at the time of the American war with Spain. For some time it had been for sale, lying in harbour at Nice; but it had been too costly a toy; the cannon with which it was armed were worth only the price of old iron to most buyers of yachts. They were equally useless to Miss Beverly and her party, as she and George Trent and Roger Broom impressed upon all who asked questions; but, then, what was the use in wasting time enough to dismantle the yacht, as she was wanted immediately, and the cannon were too cleverly concealed to injure the smart appearance of the little craft?

It was given out that the Bella Cuba would touch at Greece, go on to Egypt, and perhaps visit Algiers and Lisbon, steaming at last up the Thames to Tilbury. Virginia Beverly ostentatiously bought thin summer clothing, saying that it would be summer weather on the sea before she bade good-bye to the water. Still, Virginia announced that she did not wish to be bound down to a definite programme, and Kate Gardiner had to be satisfied with a prospect of vagueness if she intended to be of the party.

Not for a single moment had she abandoned that intention. Even if she had not stood to earn a thousand pounds she would have moved heaven and earth to go, for more and more, as the days of preparation went on, her curiosity and excitement increased.

Roger Broom, it was clear, had been intensely annoyed when he was informed that Lady Gardiner had so far overcome her fear of the sea, as to wish to be a passenger on the Bella Cuba. He had said little, but his face was expressive, and Kate was of opinion that he would have said a great deal more, had not some strong motive restrained him. Perhaps, she thought, this motive was fear of rousing her suspicions if he too emphatically advocated her stopping behind. But—suspicions of what? That was the question she often asked herself, and could never answer.

She had asked it of Loria also, when they met—as secretly as if the bond between them had been a forbidden love. But if the truth about the yachting trip had been told, even he had no solution ready for the puzzle.

At last the yacht, which had been re-painted, was ready, the captain and crew of picked men, all Englishmen, were engaged, and the Bella Cuba steamed into the harbour at Mentone, exactly one month from the date (as Kate happened to remember) of the eventful ride into the Valley of the Shadow.

They were to start in two days, and Lady Gardiner's heart sank at the thought of all the physical suffering she was doomed to endure. Nevertheless, when Virginia hinted that, if she chose to think better of her decision, it was not yet too late, she courageously assured the girl that she was looking forward to the trip. She had always wanted to see Egypt!

The yacht was swift, and had proved herself seaworthy, but she was comparatively small, and when Kate went on board with Virginia to inspect the accommodation, she was surprised to be shown only five passenger cabins. Still, as she had been informed that there were to be but four in the party, she did not see why it would be impossible for Virginia's maid to go, and ventured to say as much.

"But we have decided to take a doctor," explained Virginia. "We shall be so long at sea that otherwise it really wouldn't be safe."

"For my part I'd much rather have a maid than a doctor," sighed Kate, to whom Virginia's Celestine had made herself agreeably useful. "We shall have nothing worse the matter with us than seasickness; and how are we to do our hair?"

Thus bemoaning her fate, she passed along the line of white and gold painted doors, and stopped suddenly at a sixth, the only one which was closed. Gently she tried the handle. It did not yield.

"One would think that this ought to be another cabin," she remarked sweetly; "else what becomes of the symmetry? Now, if only it were one, you might take Celestine. You'd be so much more comfortable."

"That cabin can't be used," Virginia said, her eyes very bright, her cheeks very red. "And if you want Celestine, Kate, you must stop on land."

Lady Gardiner at once protested that she was not thinking of herself; oh, indeed no! but merely of her dear girl, who was not used to being her own maid. She said no more of the locked door, but she could think of nothing else. Why could the cabin not be used, and why had Virginia suddenly grown cross at the bare suggestion that it should be? Was it possible that Madeleine Dalahaide was going after all, that her presence was to be kept secret from Kate until the last moment, and that she was to have this stateroom? Perhaps, Lady Gardiner's jealous suspicion whispered, she was already in the cabin, and had locked herself in, fearing just such an intrusion as the turned key had prevented.

That night she saw Loria, and told him precisely what had happened on board. "I shouldn't wonder," she said reflectively, "if the whole mystery of this trip were not on the other side of that closed door. Something tells me it is so."

"When do you start?" asked the Italian.

"To-morrow, at five in the afternoon."

"Could you make an excuse to go on board in the morning alone?"

"Yes. Celestine has taken most of our things on to-day, and put them away for us. We are not supposed to leave the hotel till three o'clock. But I could say I had lost something, and hoped that I'd left it on the Bella Cuba. Or perhaps I could slip on board without saying anything until afterward. But what good would it do me? The door isn't likely to be unlocked; and I can see nothing through the keyhole. I tried this afternoon."

"I will get you a key which, if there isn't one already on the inside, will open the door."

In the night Kate Gardiner had strange dreams of the locked cabin. Twenty times in her sleep she was on the point of finding out the secret, but always woke before she had made it her own. She was up early in the morning, and went out, saying, as if carelessly, to Celestine, that she must buy a few last things which she had forgotten. In the town she met Loria, as they had arranged over-night, and he put into her hand something in a sealed envelope.

"You are sure this will do it?" she asked.

"Sure," returned the Italian.

Then they parted; Kate took a small boat and was rowed out to the Bella Cuba, which lay anchored not far from shore.

"I have come on board to look for a diamond ring which I think I dropped in my cabin yesterday," she remarked to the captain.

He turned away, all unsuspicious and Kate hurried to the saloon off which the cabins opened. Already she had broken the seal on the envelope, and taken out a small, peculiarly shaped steel implement. With a quick glance over her shoulder and a loud beating of the heart, she thrust the master-key into the lock of the closed door.



CHAPTER V

THE LADY ON THE VERANDAH

No one was coming; Lady Gardiner dared to turn the key. The door opened, and she looked into the room beyond.

It was a cabin, of the same size as the others, and fitted up as a stateroom, but furnished and decorated differently. The five which Kate had been shown yesterday were comfortable, but not particularly luxurious, and she had wondered, since this was ostensibly a pleasure trip, that beauty-loving Virginia had not thought it worth while to have her own cabin, at least, made more dainty.

In the locked stateroom, whose secret Kate was violating, the berth was hung with old brocaded silk of blue and silver, the curtains edged with curious thick lace, yellowed by time. On the floor lay a beautiful tiger-skin, covering it from end to end. A large fitted travelling-bag stood open on a cushioned seat, showing silver-topped bottles; and the wall on one side of the cabin was almost hidden with photographs and sketches which had been tacked up, over a low book-shelf, filled with volumes in uniform binding of blue and gold. The photographs were of places as well as people, and Kate had just identified the Valley of the Shadow, dominated by the Chateau de la Roche, when a sudden sound sent her out of the cabin and into the saloon, with her heart pounding and her nerves throbbing, in shamed fear of discovery.

She had just time to lock the door and pass on to that of her own stateroom when Celestine appeared, carrying various small parcels. She had been sent to the yacht by her mistress to finish a few preparations for the voyage, and was surprised to see Lady Gardiner. Kate, however, was prepared with her story of the lost ring, which no doubt Celestine would repeat to Virginia, and produced the jewel, saying that fortunately she had found it on the floor of her cabin.

The maid had no suspicion, probably did not dream that the Bella Cuba had a secret to keep, and Lady Gardiner was rowed back to shore, confident that she had come safely out of the morning's adventure. The mystery, however, remained a mystery, except that Kate was certain now of one thing which she had only suspected. There was to be a passenger on board the Bella Cuba, whose expected presence had carefully been concealed from her. For this passenger elaborate preparations had been made. Everything behind that locked door was beautiful, but nothing was new. In the fleeting glimpse Kate had obtained before the sound of Celestine's descending steps had sent her flying from her stolen inspection, she had been impressed with the feeling that the decorations of the stateroom had all been taken from some other room, with the view of surrounding its occupant with old associations.

Lady Gardiner hoped to see Loria before going back to the hotel, and an appointment had been made, to be kept as nearly to the time as possible; but he was not at Rumpelmayer's, the place of meeting, and, astonished at his defection, she was obliged to return to the Cap Martin without the expected talk. In her room she found a line from the Italian. Sir Roger Broom had seen him at Rumpelmayer's, he explained, and had joined him there. Fearing that Lady Gardiner might come in while they were together, he pleaded an engagement and went out, still accompanied by Broom. Now, Loria asked, was it possible that Miss Beverly's cousin suspected anything? Had Lady Gardiner been imprudent and dropped the slightest hint of their new allegiance?

Kate had begun a note in reply, when Virginia knocked at her door, inquiring whether she were ready for luncheon. "Wait for me just a moment in the sitting-room," said the elder woman, and, her ideas confused in the necessity for haste, she merely scrawled: "Don't think Sir Roger or any one suspects. Must have been an accident. Key worked well. I saw cabin. It is ready for a passenger. I would wager that that passenger is Madeleine Dalahaide. Probably we shall not have a word together in private now before we go, but will write you from every port, or wire if necessary and possible.—K. G."

This note she took down to the dining-room with her, and barely had a chance to press it into Loria's palm as he bade her, with the others, a rather formal farewell.

The Marchese was not one of those who went out to the yacht to see the last of the beautiful American girl and her party. Virginia had definitely refused him now, and the old, pleasant intimacy had been brought to a sudden end. Nevertheless, he sent her flowers—a great basket of roses big enough to fill up half of her stateroom on the Bella Cuba—which she promptly gave to Kate, with various other elaborate offerings, keeping for her own cabin only a small bunch of fragrant violets sent by some one whose name she seemed to guess, although there was no card.

So, at last, they were off; and no sad-faced girl in black had appeared. Besides the original party of four, there was only a little dark, keen-eyed English doctor, taken from his practice in Mentone. He looked like a man who would know how to keep a secret, and Kate wondered whether the mystery of the Bella Cuba were a mystery to Dr. Grayle.

"Miss Dalahaide will come on board at Naples," Kate said to herself when it became certain that they would stop there. "She is well known in Mentone, no doubt, and didn't wish it to leak out that she was going on this yachting trip."

But they arrived at Naples, sent off telegrams and letters, coaled, and left without taking on another passenger. Always it seemed to Kate that Virginia's manner showed suppressed nervous excitement. She was restless, capricious, took an interest in nothing for more than ten minutes together. She had never been to Naples before, yet she appeared to grudge the two or three hours they spent in driving about, and would not listen to Kate's suggestion that they should stop long enough for a visit to Pompeii.

"Next time," she said evasively. Altogether, she had not at all the air of a young woman yachting for pleasure, as of course she must be, since what other object could the trip have? "I am in a hurry to see Cairo," she replied, when Lady Gardiner inquired the reason of her impatience.

After all, they did not touch at Greece, but went straight on to Alexandria, the sea being so calmly unruffled that even Kate had no excuse for illness. She might have been very happy in these long, lazy, blue-and-gold days, if George Trent had been his old self. But the frost which had withered the flower of his fancy for her that day in the Valley of the Shadow, had never thawed. He read and smoked a great deal, leaving Roger Broom to amuse Virginia and Lady Gardiner.

Something went wrong with the engine the morning when they expected to reach Alexandria and Kate heard talk of a "heated bearing on the crankshaft," which might have to be taken off, thus delaying them a couple of days. "But a couple of days!" she exclaimed in surprise. "Surely you mean to stop longer than that!"

"We hadn't thought of it," answered Roger drily.

"Are you going up the Nile then?"

"No; the Bella Cuba is rather big, you know."

"Not so big as the excursion boats that go, is she?"

"Virginia doesn't care about it, anyhow; she loves the sea for its own sake, and hasn't come as much for sight-seeing as for a complete rest. While the repairs are being done we shall run up to Cairo by rail, stop a night at the Ghezireh Palace, and drive out for a look at the Sphinx and the Pyramids."

"You really are the most extraordinary people!" ejaculated Kate. "I don't know what to make of you."

Roger smiled, and was silent. He had the air of thinking it of small importance whether or not Lady Gardiner, who had insisted upon coming on this trip, knew what to make of her hosts and hostess. But, then, Sir Roger Broom had never more than tolerated this most charming of companions.

Kate had kept the master-key which Loria had given her, and had never ceased to hope for another chance to investigate the locked stateroom, which might, she told herself sometimes, have a hidden occupant. To be sure, so far as she knew, no other passengers had come on board at Naples; but, then, they had all been away from the yacht for several hours, and some one might have been smuggled into the cabin. With this fancy lurking in her mind, she would have given much for a second peep; but she had never found a moment when it seemed safe to run the risk.

She could imagine no reason, if Madeleine Dalahaide had come on board at Naples, beyond spying-distance of old acquaintances, why she should remain hidden in the stateroom, unless, indeed, there were some truth in Loria's suggestion that the yacht was bound for New Caledonia, to take the girl out to her convict brother. In that case, perhaps, it might conceivably be necessary to keep the captain and crew in ignorance of her presence, lest they should gossip in port. Still, Virginia's restlessness, her lack of interest in the beautiful places so easy to visit, her desire to remain on board when the Bella Cuba was in port, seemed to point to some peculiar motive under her indifference to all pleasures of the trip.

In Alexandria, the girl "did not see why they should pack up to stop a night in Cairo." What if the crankshaft could be repaired sooner than they supposed? Then they would be wasting time. But she was overruled, and just before sunset they drove up to one of the most beautiful hotels in the world.

The evening chill was beginning to fall, yet many people still lingered on the huge terrace overlooking the Nile, where the "winging" sails of the little boats were pink and golden as mother-o'-pearl, reflecting the crimson glory of the sky. A woman sitting alone at a little table looked up as they passed, and with a slight start. Virginia half stopped, staring almost rudely at the face which was lifted for a moment. But it was only for a moment.

The woman, who was exceedingly handsome, of the most luscious Spanish type of beauty, flushed under the American girl's intent gaze, drew up a sable cape which had partly fallen from the shoulders of her white cloth dress, and turned a resentful back.

"What a handsome creature, but awfully made up!" whispered Kate, who had no mercy on her own sex.

Virginia did not answer. She walked on, looking as if she had awakened from a dream.

At dinner that night, next to the party from the yacht, was a small table laid for one. It was unoccupied until they had half finished dinner; then heads began suddenly to turn toward the door; people whispered, there was a perceptible, though scarcely definable thrill of interest, and a tall woman in sequined black tulle, glittering with diamonds, came slowly up the room. She must have known that all eyes were upon her, yet she appeared unconscious. Her lashes were cast down as she moved toward a chair held obsequiously ready by a waiter at the little empty table, and their dusky length was not second even to Virginia's. As the newcomer sat down, she faced Roger Broom.

"That woman's face looks somehow familiar to me," he said, "yet I can't think where, if ever, I have seen it. I suppose it can only be a chance resemblance to somebody or other."

Virginia opened her lips to speak, but closed them again hastily. Kate then threw a questioning glance her way, and saw that she had suddenly grown pale. "I wish you or George would find out who she is," the girl said presently. "She is one of the handsomest women I ever saw. If possible, I should like to know her."

"I can promise that you shall at least know her name," replied Roger, smiling. "It wouldn't be safe to say more." And, true to his word, an hour after dinner he came to the private drawing-room where Virginia and Lady Gardiner sat, with the required information.

"The strange beauty is a Portuguese countess," he announced. "Her name is De Mattos, and she is a widow, spending the winter here alone, except for her maid. She is much admired, especially by men, but apparently does not care to make acquaintances; otherwise, as she seems to be a person whose name the gossips respect, your wish might perhaps have been gratified."

"Have you remembered yet where you saw her before?"

"I've remembered where I saw some one like her. But it is not the same woman."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely. The other was a blonde with Titian hair. And she has been dead for years."

Virginia said no more, and appeared to forget the Portuguese countess. But when Lady Gardiner complained of being tired, and went off to bed, that she might be fresh for sight-seeing next morning, also to write a puzzled letter to the Marchese Loria, Virginia remained. George Trent had gone to a Cairene theatre, and she and Roger were alone together.

Scarcely had the door closed upon Kate Gardiner, when the girl sprang up from her chair, and before Roger knew what she meant to do, was sitting on a divan beside him, her hand on his sleeve.

"Roger," she exclaimed, "I thank you a thousand, thousand times for insisting that I should come here."

"You haven't seen anything yet," he returned. "Thank me after to-morrow."

"It's the most wonderful thing in the world that we should have come," she went on. "If we had employed the cleverest detectives in Paris and London they might never have discovered what chance, merest chance—if there is such a thing as chance—has put into our hands to-night."

"What are you talking about, dear child?" asked Roger.

"I'm talking about Liane Devereux, the actress that Maxime Dalahaide is supposed to have murdered. You've been very good, Roger. I've appreciated it, for you never believed in his innocence. Now you must believe, in spite of yourself, since she is here, calling herself the Countess de Mattos."

Roger stared at her in amazement. "But this is madness, dear," he said. "Liane Devereux was murdered; whether Maxime Dalahaide or another was her murderer, there is no possible doubt that she is dead. You can't know the story as well as I thought you did, if you don't put that beyond questioning."

"I tell you, Liane Devereux is in this house, and Providence sent me here to see her. It's that which is beyond question."

"Did Madeleine Dalahaide show you the woman's picture?"

"Yes, two pictures; a photograph and an ivory miniature. She kept them because they were her brother's, just as she kept everything of his. I looked at them again and again, until I knew the features line by line. I can't be mistaken. This is the same woman. There was an even deeper mystery about that murder than Maxime Dalahaide's best friends guessed."

Roger Broom shrugged his shoulders with a despairing laugh. "For light-hearted trampling on established facts, give me an American girl!" he exclaimed. "A woman is murdered, her body found, identified, buried. Four or five years afterward another woman appears, a brunette, while Number One was blonde. Number One, a Frenchwoman, was murdered in Paris; Number Two, a Portuguese, is spending the winter in Cairo. There is absolutely nothing to link these women together except a resemblance of feature, which, though strong, is not convincing even to a man who saw Number One on the stage many times. Yet here comes a maiden from the States, who was in the schoolroom in her own country when Number One was murdered, and insists, because she has seen a portrait or two, that Liane Devereux, the dead actress, and the Countess de Mattos are one and the same."

"I know it sounds childish," admitted Virginia, with unwonted meekness; "nevertheless, I'm absolutely sure. I'd stake my life on it, if it were necessary."

"How do you proceed to explain the identification and burial of Liane Devereux's body if she is now alive in Cairo?"

"I don't pretend to explain—yet. There was a mistake—that's all I can say."

"Liane Devereux was too well known for that to be possible. Besides, if there had been such a mistake, another woman, murdered and buried in her place, must have been missing. As a matter of fact, no other woman was missing."

"You mean no other woman's disappearance was discovered."

"You're incorrigible! I know you're wrong; but, admitting for the sake of argument that you might be right, what use could you make of this marvellous private information, supplied to your brain only? If the Countess de Mattos is really Liane Devereux, come to life, one might be sure that a woman clever enough to plan from the beginning so astounding an affair would be too clever to leave any tracks behind her."

"Yes, that is one of the difficulties," said Virginia. "Only somehow we must get over it."

"I hope, my dear free-lance detective, that you aren't plotting to accuse the Countess to her face, and have a dramatic scene in the hall of the Ghezireh Palace?"

"I don't know yet what to do," the girl answered slowly. "But I don't want to leave Cairo until after we've done something."

"Believe me, there's nothing to do. We are on a wild-goose chase as it is; don't let's complicate things by a suit for slander just as it's begun. My advice is, dear, put this mad idea out of your head, and let's get on about our business as quickly as we can—as quickly as you yourself wanted to do a few hours ago."

"Then I'm sorry I can't take your advice," said Virginia. "I'm growing superstitious. I believe that I was brought here for a particular purpose, and I don't mean to go until, in some way, I've accomplished that purpose."

Roger sighed, and said no more. He had exhausted his stock of arguments; he knew Virginia almost as well as he loved her. He had promised cooeperation; and though there had been no bargaining, she had voluntarily led him to hope for a reward which, to him, was beyond any other happiness the world might hold. Therefore he could do nothing but bow to the inevitable, and await developments, which meant, with a girl like Virginia Beverly, expecting the unexpected.

* * * * *

Suddenly in the night Virginia sat up in bed and exclaimed aloud: "Oh, if I could!" Kate Gardiner, in a room adjoining, heard her, and supposed that she was talking in her sleep. But the truth was that a plan had at that instant sprung fully armed from her brain, like Minerva from the head of Jove; a plan so daring that the bare thought was an electric shock.

She could not sleep after its conception, but lay tossing and tingling until it was time to get up. Every moment would be long now until the machinery could be set in motion, and she bathed and dressed hastily, having long ago ceased actively to miss Celestine's lost ministrations.

There was no sound in the next room. Kate was not yet awake, evidently; and so, as she took quite two hours for dressing and beautifying, it would be foolish to wait for her. Virginia went downstairs, looking about in vain for Roger or George, and stepped out on to the wide verandah, for a look at the Nile by morning light. To her joy the beautiful Portuguese countess was there, breakfasting alone, with a yellow-covered French novel open on the little table before her. Virginia instantly decided that she would also breakfast on the verandah, and as near to the Countess as possible.

As the American girl's pale blue serge rustled its silk lining along the floor, the Portuguese woman raised her eyes from the novel she was reading as she sipped her coffee. The eyes had appeared almost black in the evening; now Virginia saw that they were a curious, greenish gray, and her heart gave a leap, for the eyes of Liane Devereux, in the painted ivory miniature, had been gray.

Now or never, Virginia said to herself, was the time to begin the campaign. She seized the tide of fortune at its flood, and spoke in English, making the most of the pretty, drawling Southern accent of the State after which she had been named, because American girls were privileged to be eccentric.

"Good morning," she said. "Oh, I do hope you understand my language, because I want to tell you something."

The green-gray eyes of the Countess shone keenly between their heavy black fringes during a silent moment of inspection, which must have shown her Virginia divinely young, and childishly innocent of guile. At the end of the moment she smiled.

"Yes, I understand English, and speak it a little," she responded, with a charming accent, and in a voice musical but unexpectedly deep. "You are American, is it not? What have you to tell me—that we have met before, somewhere?"

At this—or Virginia imagined it—there came again a steely flash from the black lashes. "Oh, no," said the girl hurriedly. "I never saw you until yesterday. What I want to tell you is, that I hope you will forgive me for staring at you as I did then. I was afraid you'd think me rude. But I just couldn't help it, you are so beautiful. I adore beauty. You can be sure now I'm American, can't you? for nobody but an American girl would say such things to a perfect stranger. I'm glad I am American, for if I didn't speak I don't see exactly how I should get to know you. And I want to know you very much. I made my cousin, Sir Roger Broom—he's English, though I'm American—ask who you were, so I heard your name. Mine is Virginia Beverly. Now we're introduced, aren't we?"

The Countess laughed and looked pleased. "I have seen your name in the journals," she said—"the journals of society all over the world, that one reads in hotels when one has nothing better to do, is it not? They told the truth in one thing, for they said that you were tres belle. And you have bought the yacht of a Spanish gentleman, whom I have known a little. Yes, I remember it was a Miss Virginia Beverly, for it is not a name to forget; and I love yachting."

By this time, Virginia had ordered her breakfast and received it, but she was far too excited to make more than a pretense at eating. It was almost as if the Countess de Mattos were playing into her hands. It seemed too good to be true. She was afraid that something would happen to ruin all; that she would lose her head, and by her precipitancy put the other on her guard; yet the opportunity was too admirable to be entirely neglected.

"If you like yachting, it would be nice if you could come and have a day's run with us," said the girl. "The Bella Cuba is at Alexandria, and we should all love taking you. My cousin and my half-brother, George Trent, couldn't talk of anything but you last night. Perhaps, later, we might arrange it, if the railway journey both ways wouldn't bore you."

"On the contrary, I should be charmed," replied the Countess. She flushed, and her eyes brightened. Virginia looked at her admiringly, yet sharply, and said to herself: "If that rich, dark complexion of yours is make-up—as it must be to prove my theory right—then it's the cleverest make-up that any woman ever had as a disguise."

At this moment Sir Roger Broom and George Trent came out on to the verandah together, both looking very much surprised to see Virginia in conversation with the Countess de Mattos.

"Can she have said anything?" Roger thought quickly. But the calm expression of the beautiful, dark face was in itself an answer to his silent question.

The two men strolled up to Virginia, who asked and received permission from the Countess to introduce her brother and cousin; and soon they were talking as if they had known each other for days instead of moments.

The Portuguese beauty was distinctly ingratiating in her manner to all three, so much so that Roger became thoughtful. He was more certain than ever, if that were possible, that this woman was not Liane Devereux, for the voice was many tones deeper, and the Countess spoke English with an accent that was not at all French.

It seemed to him that no woman could disguise herself so completely—face, voice, mannerisms, accent—no matter how clever she might be; besides, Virginia's idea was ridiculous. But he began to wonder whether the lovely Portuguese had a right to her title, or, if she had, whether it were as well gilded as her charming frocks and her residence at this expensive hotel would suggest at first sight.

It seemed to him that she caught too readily at new acquaintances for a rich and haughty daughter of Portuguese aristocracy, and though he believed that he understood, only too well, Virginia's motive for cultivating a friendship, he was inclined to fear that the girl might be victimized by an adventuress.

The Countess de Mattos was too handsome and too striking not to have been remarked in Cairo, no matter how quietly she might live at the Ghezireh Palace Hotel, and he determined to make inquiries of some officers whom he knew there.

At all events, plans for the present were changed. Instead of a day or two in Cairo they were to stay on indefinitely. George, as well as Roger, was taken into the secret, but Lady Gardiner was told only the fact. She was pleased at first, for she was fond of Cairo, and had never had a chance to stop there in luxury before. She did not, however, like the Countess de Mattos, who was much too handsome to be acceptable to her; and before the slower and more prudent Roger had learnt anything, she was primed with all the gossip of the hotel regarding the Portuguese beauty. There was a certain Mrs. Maitland-Fox at the Ghezireh Palace, whom Lady Gardiner had met before, and from her she gathered the crumbs of gossip with which she immediately afterward regaled Virginia.

"They" said that the Countess de Mattos, although she might really be a countess (and there were those who pretended to vouch for this), had scarcely a penny. She traded on her beauty and the lovely clothes with which some trusting milliner must have supplied her, to pick up rich or influential friends, from whom she was certain to extort money in some way or another. And it was Mrs. Maitland-Fox's advice that Miss Beverly should be warned to beware of the beautiful lady.

Among his friends, Roger heard something of the same sort, and though he was bound to admit that it was all very vague, he begged Virginia to abandon a forlorn hope, and let the Portuguese woman alone.

"If she were really a Portuguese woman she might vanish from before my eyes, for all I should care," obstinately returned the girl. "But she is Liane Devereux, and if she breathed poison I wouldn't let her go till I had torn out her secret."

"How do you mean to set about doing that?" demanded Roger.

"That is my secret," said Virginia. "Only let me alone and don't thwart me, or you'll spoil everything."

Roger waited, expectant and apprehensive. He had not to wait long.



CHAPTER VI

THE END OF THE WORLD

They stayed a week in Cairo, and at the end of that time the Countess de Mattos had accepted an invitation to go yachting; not for a day, but for a vague period of "dawdling," as Virginia evasively expressed it. The beautiful Portuguese woman had hesitated at first, and confided to the American girl that, on account of the delay in receiving an expected sum of money, she did not quite see how she could get away in time. But Virginia had begged the Countess not to let such a small difficulty trouble her for a moment. She really must accept a loan to tide over the little annoyance; it would indeed be too hard to lose the pleasure of her companionship for the sake of a few paltry dollars, so that would be no favour at all, or rather, the favour would be the other way round.

The "few paltry dollars" necessary turned out to be three thousand; but if they had been three times three thousand Virginia would have lent them just as cheerfully without the prospect of, or even wish for, their return. With the money obtained from Virginia's practically unlimited letter of credit in her pocket, and a hint delicately expressed that more would be at her service whenever she wished, "as it was such a nuisance having to keep in touch with one's bankers and people like that on a long yachting trip when nothing was less settled than one's plans," the Countess thought herself very well off.

"Are you in a hurry to be anywhere in particular during the next few weeks?" asked the girl of her new friend. "No? How nice! Then let us throw all the responsibility of planning things upon the men. What fun never to know where we are going, but to be surprised always when we arrive anywhere."

And the Countess de Mattos agreed. She would have agreed with almost anything that Virginia said that day. If the American girl believed that Providence had directed her to cross the path of this beautiful woman, the beautiful woman was equally sure that the god of luck had put this infatuated young heiress in her way.

Roger would hardly have consented to the carrying out of Virginia's plan, which he called "kidnapping," had George Trent not joined his arguments to his sister's.

"It does seem a mad idea," he admitted, "but if the woman isn't Liane Devereux, no harm will be done, except that she'll be taken a longer journey than she expects. If she is—ah! I know what you think, old chap, without your lifting your eyebrows up to your hair; but, by Jove! Virgie's got an instinct that's like the needle of a compass. When she says 'north,' I'd bet my bottom dollar it was north, that's all. If I don't object to Virgie's associating with the Countess, you needn't—yet, anyhow. She isn't the kind of girl to be hurt by that sort of thing, and, besides, she'll have the dickens of a tantrum if we try to thwart her now she's set her heart on this trick. She'd be equal to slipping anchor with the Countess on board and leaving us in the lurch. Let's see the little girl through on her own lines, and if the snap doesn't come off, she can't blame us. Anyway, it's rougher on me than on you, for Virgie's put me up to do the agreeable to the Countess and keep her from getting restless before we attempt to spring our mine. A while ago I wouldn't have asked anything better than flirting all day with such a woman, who is as pretty and as fascinating as they're made, but I'm not in the mood for it now, somehow. Still, we're playing for big stakes—you for yours, Roger, I for mine."

This was the only reference he made to his interest in Madeleine Dalahaide; but Roger guessed what was in his mind.

Lady Gardiner floundered deeper than ever into the quicksands of mystery when she heard that the Countess de Mattos was to be one of the party for the rest of the voyage—wherever it was to take them. What could be Virginia's object in picking up this woman? Was it really true that she had taken the violent and sudden fancy to her that she feigned to feel, or did that pretense cloak a hidden motive? Kate had no clue, unless the fact that Virginia had asked her never to mention Madeleine Dalahaide or the Chateau de la Roche before the Countess could be called a motive. She would have disobeyed Virginia, by way of a curiosity-satisfying experiment, if she had not feared that the result might be disastrous and that she would be found out.

At least she would in a gentle, tactful way have suggested objections to the Countess de Mattos's presence on the yacht, had she not been certain that Virginia would have frankly advised her to stay behind if she did not like the arrangements for the rest of the trip. Much as she loved Cairo in the height of its gay season, much as she hated the sea at all seasons, nevertheless she was doggedly determined to see this adventure to the end (bitter though it might be), not only to earn her thousand pounds, but to know the secret which actually kept her waking and wondering at night.

It really was the strangest thing that Virginia should want this adventuress on the yacht, Kate indignantly remarked to Mrs. Maitland-Fox. The girl had refused to take a maid because there would not be room, yet now she dragged this creature on board to flirt with George Trent and perhaps inveigle him into a marriage under the impression that he was as rich as he was handsome.

But with Virginia herself, after the first few moments of surprise, Lady Gardiner had been circumspect. She had not even dared to ask the question burning on her lips—whether the Countess would have the locked stateroom, or what arrangement would be made for her accommodation? Obliged to wait for this information until the hour of going on board again, once the Countess de Mattos's presence was to be expected without hope of change, Kate began to be impatient to start.

The party, counting quiet, keen-eyed little Dr. Grayle, was now increased to six, an equal number of men and women, for the Countess had readily given up her maid. They all travelled to Alexandria together one morning, and, boarding the yacht, Kate eagerly watched for the new guest to be taken to her stateroom. Would the locked door be opened? No; Virginia led her past that mysterious, closed door, to the cabin formerly occupied by George Trent, and Kate saw that the young man's belongings, just brought back from Cairo, had been set down inside the stateroom once sacred to the doctor alone. In this there were two berths, and evidently George and the medical man would "chum" together for the rest of the voyage. The discovery did not add to Lady Gardiner's love for the Portuguese woman, for, half forgetting her uneasiness concerning Madeleine Dalahaide, she was now jealous of the new beauty, and it was gall and wormwood to Kate that George Trent, lost to her, should be making gallant sacrifices of his personal comfort for another woman.

She had written to the Marchese Loria on the first night of their arrival in Cairo, before the acquaintance with the Countess had begun, and, as she could learn nothing of the future programme for the voyage, it had not seemed worth while to write again. As for the invitation to the Portuguese woman, Kate did not see that it could be of personal interest to Loria, and she never wrote unless she had something to say which was of importance to him; therefore the Italian remained in ignorance that the Countess de Mattos was a member of the little party on the Bella Cuba.

So far as the trip had gone, there was nothing to excite his anxiety save that the girl he coveted for her beauty and her money was going farther and farther from him. But one day a telegram came for him to the Cap Martin Hotel, where he still remained. It was dated from Port Said. "Bound for Australia," were the three words the message contained; and they were words of heavy import to Loria.

Australia! There was no reason why Virginia Beverly should not visit Australia. He had heard her say that she would not be satisfied until she had seen all the world. But if she had thought of going to Australia before she left Mentone, she had carefully refrained from saying so. It was more the fact that she had concealed such an intention than that she was now carrying it out, which seemed ominous to Loria. Sydney was the nearest place of departure for New Caledonia. In a Messageries mail boat it took ten days to reach Noumea from Sydney; it would perhaps take longer in a yacht like the Bella Cuba. And the sensible question to ask would be, Was it likely that a bright, erratic, butterfly being like beautiful Virginia Beverly would go so far simply for the pleasure of seeing the prison which contained a stranger, a convicted assassin for whom she had conceived a girlishly romantic interest?

It was not as if she could hope to meet and talk with Maxime Dalahaide himself, have the pleasure of carrying him messages from his sister, or perhaps even bring Madeleine to him (for the Chateau de la Roche was empty now, in the hands of workmen, and no one, not even Loria, had been able to learn where Mademoiselle Dalahaide and her aunt had gone). The Italian was not unlearned in such lore of the far-away French prison-land as could be obtained, and he had read that, though strangers were allowed to land at Noumea, and a few had been enabled through influence to penetrate inside the prison walls, all personal intercourse with the convicts was strictly interdicted. Since the one almost miraculous escape, over thirty years ago, of Henri Rochefort and Humbert, watch and ward had been more strictly kept than ever; besides, they had escaped from Ducos, on the Isle of Pines, which in those days had been sacred to political prisoners, and discipline there had been, even then, lax compared to that of the Ile Nou, the very heart of prison-land, where Maxime Dalahaide was dragging out the weary years of his lost life.

Yet what if Virginia should have formed the extraordinary resolve of going to Noumea? What was it to him—Loria—since she could accomplish nothing there? Suppose, even, that among other miserable convicts she saw Maxime—pallid, thin, sullen and hopeless, his good looks and his brilliant audacity crushed and gone—would not the romantic feeling she had conceived for him be instantly turned into horror and disgust? When such a chill had withered a girl's fancy for a man, there could be no future blossoming, and her heart might be caught in the rebound. Once, Loria had thought that Virginia had been on the point of caring for him. Perhaps when they met she would turn to him again, remorseful for the pain she had caused, grateful for his unwavering loyalty; and, telling himself these things, he was almost persuaded that it would do him more good than harm if Virginia did go to Noumea. But he was never wholly persuaded. A strange fear knocked at his heart, a fear that had no name. He never quite saw its face. Like a haunting ghost, it was always behind him, and he could hear the swish of its garments, the stealthy sound of its footfalls; but when he turned upon it the thing was gone, leaving only the impression of a black shadow with a veiled face inexpressibly awful.

Loria could not sleep by night, and by day he was restless. He began to dread an illness, and was constantly troubled with headache, which gave him an excuse for believing that the vague, nervous apprehension he suffered was largely the result of physical causes.

What else, indeed, could it be? He had absolutely nothing to fear. Of this he was still continually reminding himself, when another telegram came from Lady Gardiner, dated Sydney. "Leaving here to-morrow," she said. "Destination unknown."

* * * * *

The Bella Cuba was ten days out from Sydney Heads. Her passengers rose early, for in the morning it was good to be alive. Virginia, fresh from her cold, salt bath, came on deck, and saw the Countess de Mattos there, with George Trent. Far away lay a strip of land, turning slowly from violet to emerald as the yacht steamed nearer. Virginia saw it and flushed. She knew what it must be, and quickly she glanced at George, with an eager question in her eyes.

It was tacitly understood that the task of informing the Countess de Mattos what her destination was to be must be left to Virginia; she coveted it, while the two men did not. Still, the Portuguese might have guessed, on seeing that strip of violet; or George might inadvertently have given her a clue, and she would be on her guard.

But George's blue eyes met his sister's; and with the faintest shake of his head he contrived to convey to her the intelligence that the secret still remained a secret.

Virginia's heart was beating fast as she joined her brother and the Countess, and her hand was not quite steady as she offered her field-glass to the beautiful Portuguese, who had long ago begged the two ladies on board to call her "Manuela."

"What a large island!" exclaimed the Countess. "And we seem to be making for it. What can it be? Mr. Trent says perhaps it is a mirage. But I think that is his joke. He likes teasing."

"I think," replied Virginia calmly, though her eyes were on the face of Manuela, "that we must be coming in sight of New Caledonia."

As she gave this answer, Roger Broom came up the companionway, and heard the last words, which rang out, distinctly. Instantly he knew that the moment for which Virginia had been waiting was at hand, and he, too, watched the Countess.

She had taken Virginia's field-glass, and was gazing through it at the far-off land which with each moment seemed to grow more distinct. Only the delicate, aquiline profile could be seen by the eager eyes that looked for a sign of weakness. She did not speak at first, but a visible shiver ran through her body. The field-glass came down rather suddenly, and her fingers gripped it tightly as they rested on the rail. But she did not turn her face, and continued gazing landward as at last she echoed the words, "New Caledonia!"

"Is not that a prison for the French forcats?" she slowly asked.

Tacitly, the two men left the answer to Virginia. "Yes," said the girl. "Noumea is a penal settlement. They say it is very interesting to see. We thought that we might stop for a day or two in the harbour there."

This time the Countess turned. "Oh, but that would be terrible!" she exclaimed. "We—they might rob and murder us, these convicts. You did not say that we were coming to Noumea."

"It was to be one of our surprises," replied Virginia. "I thought that you would like it."

"No, no!" ejaculated Manuela. "I do not like it at all. I have a horror of such places and such people. This is a pleasure trip, is it not? There is no pleasure in visiting a prison-land. Dear Virginia, dear Mr. Trent and Sir Roger, do let us turn our faces another way and go somewhere else."

Virginia had not lost a single changing shade of expression on the Countess de Mattos's darkly beautiful face; but if she had been questioned, she would have had to confess that she was disappointed in the great effect toward which she had so long been working up. She had half expected to see this wicked woman who, in some deadly and mysterious way, had plotted to destroy Maxime Dalahaide, turn livid under the brown stain which she (Virginia) suspected, gasp, totter, and perhaps fall fainting when she heard those fatal names—"New Caledonia, Noumea." But Manuela gave none of these evidences of distress. If she paled, the dusky stain in whose existence Virginia so tenaciously believed hid the sign of her emotion. It allowed a deep flush to be seen; even Virginia could not deny that, but pallor was difficult to trace where complexion and even lips were tinted brown and red; and the slight quivering of the body, the dropping of the hand with the field-glass, were not so marked that they might not be due to an ordinary, disagreeable surprise.

"I'm sorry you feel so about the place," said Virginia. "That's the worst of planning surprises, isn't it? One can't always be sure of bringing off a success. Now, I'm afraid we must make the best of it, for as we arranged to come here, our stores won't last long enough to avoid New Caledonia and go farther. We must buy butter and milk and vegetables, and chickens and lots of things, to say nothing of coaling. But you needn't see anything of the prison and the prisoners unless you like. The harbour is said to be glorious, and you can stop on board and read novels, while the rest of us do our sight-seeing, which won't take us very long."

"Sight-seeing in a prison!" exclaimed the Countess. "You English and Americans are strange. We Latins, we never give ourselves pain that can be avoided. There is enough that is unpleasant in life without that. Ugh! I would rather do without butter and milk than buy it of convicts, who may poison us in sheer spite because we are more fortunate than they. Could we not turn round, and get back to Sydney without starving?"

"No, it couldn't be managed," said Virginia.

Manuela turned pleading eyes upon Roger and George. They were men; they knew more about such things than women; besides she could usually make men do what she wished. But for once she found creatures of the opposite sex who were not to be melted by her pleading. They agreed with Virginia that it was impossible now to avoid New Caledonia.

"And how long shall we stay?" plaintively inquired the Countess, when she had been obliged to resign herself to the inevitable, which, to her credit, she did with a very pretty grace. "Shall we leave again to-night, with our poisoned food?"

"Wait till you have seen the rocks in the harbour," answered George. "If they're as bad as the book says, they must be something to see. Anyhow, it's only possible to get in or out between sunrise and sunset. I'm afraid, Countess, you'll have to put up with it till to-morrow."

"Oh!" Manuela sighed a long sigh. She asked no more questions, she made no more protests. She turned her back upon New Caledonia, and appeared to dismiss the land of lost souls from her mind.

"Well," said Roger, when he and Virginia had walked away, leaving the Countess and George Trent to the flirtation which was so embittering the daily life of Lady Gardiner. "Well, was I right or wrong about this woman?"

"Wrong," firmly answered Virginia.

"You say that still, after the way she took your grand coup? But this is only because you hate giving up, beaten."

"I'm not beaten yet," the girl returned doggedly. "I hoped for something different—yes, I admit that. But her game means as much to her as ours does to us. She's playing it for all it's worth. If she weren't such a wretch, I should have admired her pluck. How she held her ground! Taken by surprise as she was, almost her first thought was whether we had purposely caught her in this trap, or whether she had only an avenging fate to thank for such a terrible and startling coincidence. I saw that, at least, in her eyes and her face, Roger, though I didn't see all I had been looking for. Think what she must have been feeling! She helped to send an innocent man who had loved and trusted her into this exile, worse than death. She thought herself free from him forever, because he was at the other end of the world, dead-alive, in the grave where she buried him. Suddenly she finds herself looking at that grave, unable to escape. At any moment it may open, and the dead appear to accuse her. What a situation!"

"What an imagination!" exclaimed Roger. "Dear child, you have let it carry you away as far from the truth as you've carried this woman from her home—this woman whom you've so audaciously kidnapped."

"Wait," said Virginia, her voice trembling. "I haven't done with her. This is only the first turn of the thumbscrew. She doesn't dream yet of the ordeal she'll have to go through."

"May have to go through," quietly amended Roger Broom.

"You mean—oh, Roger, don't you think we'll succeed in what we've come for so far, so very far?"

Virginia, with tears sparkling in uplifted eyes, was irresistible.

"I hope it, dear," the man who loved and wanted her said, gravely. "I never thought it, you know. But the way hasn't seemed far to me, because I have been with you and the time will not have been wasted for me if we fail, because it has kept me by your side. I shall think, 'I have done what I could, and it has pleased Virginia.'"

"It has made Virginia grateful for all her life long," said the girl softly, "and whatever happens she will never forget. You have done so much already! Disapproving my plan, still you loyally did all you could to forward it. You used your influence to get us the one chance here, without which we could hope to do nothing. You wrote to the French Ambassador in London, the English Ambassador in France, and finally, when our interests were so twisted up in masses of official red-tape that it seemed they could never get disentangled, you ran on to Paris yourself to call on the Minister of the Colonies. If it had not been for the permit you got from him, we might as well have given up coming here, for all the prison doors would have been shut to us. Now, through him, and through you, they will be open, and our first step is clear. All this made me feel hopeful, when we were far away; I felt sure that we should succeed. But now that we have come these thousands of miles in our poor little boat; now that we have arrived at the end of the world and our real work is still before us, my heart suddenly sinks down—down. I'm frightened—I'm almost ill: and your words and your face are so grave, Roger! Your very tenderness and kindness make it worse, for somehow, it's as if you thought there might be a good-bye. It makes me realize that, after all, the greatest danger is to be run by you and George. You have both come for my sake; and—you are going to risk your lives."

"Risk your lives!" repeated a voice; and turning quickly, Virginia and her cousin saw Lady Gardiner, who had lately developed a rather stealthy way of creeping noiselessly behind her friends.

Virginia's mood was not one to promote presence of mind. She was speechless; but Roger stepped in to the breach.

"We were talking of a swim that George and I propose to have in these pleasant waters," he remarked. "There are supposed to be a good many sharks about, and Virginia is advising prudence."

"Oh!" breathed Lady Gardiner. "She is quite right. We will all join our persuasions to hers. But the Countess tells me this island is actually New Caledonia, the French penal settlement. Isn't that where your friend Miss Dalahaide's brother is imprisoned?"

"I believe so," said Virginia.

"How exciting! And how well you've kept the secret of this expedition! Is there any chance of our coming across the interesting murderer?"

"Don't call him that!" Virginia cried hotly. "How do you suppose that it would be possible for us to come across him? Do tourists who go to Portland 'come across' prisoners who have been convicted of murder—whether innocent or not? Noumea isn't the only port we have visited. It is on our way. We shall stop a day or two, and then—we shall go on somewhere else."

"Quite so," drily returned Lady Gardiner.

It was noon when they slowly steamed into the beautiful harbour of Noumea, and before them lay the crime-cursed land, fair with the fatal fairness of deadly nightshade.

There, for nearly five years, Maxime Dalahaide had not lived, but existed. To give him back to life, she had come thousands of miles and spent more than twenty thousand pounds. What would they find that he had become, if those precious documents which Roger had obtained proved as potent as they hoped? Would his brain and heart have been strong enough to bear the hopeless agony, the shame, the hideous associations of those years which to him must have seemed a century of despair; or would he have fallen under the burden?

Virginia shivered as if with cold, as she fancied a hard, official voice announcing that Number So-and-So was dead.



CHAPTER VII

THE GATES OPEN

The Countess de Mattos had a headache which was so severe, she announced, that it would prevent her from landing; besides, she was not interested in convicts. Lady Gardiner, on the contrary, was greatly interested. Never had she been more alert; never had her black eyes been so keen. She wanted to go everywhere; she wanted to see everything. She thought Noumea a charming place; she had "really no sympathy for the prisoners." One might commit a crime solely for the pleasure of being sent here.

The party of five went ashore, and Kate's principal preoccupation seemed to be to keep as close to Virginia as possible. She had the air of expecting some choice excitement, which she might miss if the girl were lost sight of for a moment. But nothing in the manner of Virginia or her brother or cousin suggested that they had come to this strange spot "at the end of the world" with any object save that of amusement. They behaved just as they had behaved at Sydney, or any other port at which they had called. All five strolled up, under a blaze of tropical sunshine, to the Place des Cocotiers, and sitting on the shaded verandah of the Hotel de France, sipped a cooling drink concocted of oranges, lemons and pineapple. Then they sauntered on again, much observed by a few weary-looking persons they met, through broad streets, with long, low, white houses.

Dr. Grayle kept beside Lady Gardiner now, and they walked in front, as the former was supposed to have studied the subject of the penal settlement so thoroughly as to be qualified for guide.

Kate glanced over her shoulder often; but Dr. Grayle succeeded in genuinely interesting her in a story of an atrocious criminal who had been expatriated to Noumea some years before. When she looked hurriedly back, ostensibly to ask Roger Broom if he had ever heard the spicy narrative, the three had disappeared.

Lady Gardiner flushed in anger with them for their duplicity, with herself for her carelessness in letting them slip away. "Dear me! what has become of the others?" she exclaimed. "We must turn back and find them."

Dr. Grayle took the defection calmly—so calmly that Kate leaped to the conviction that he was in the plot against her. The others wanted to go somewhere or do something without her, and this little brown-faced, sharp-eyed man had been told off as a kind of decoy duck. But she would circumvent them yet. She would know what was going on.

"They have probably gone to buy some bit of carving or other souvenirs of convict make," said the doctor. "Certainly we'll turn back if you like."

They did turn back, and wandered about in all the (according to Dr. Grayle) most likely places to find the lost ones, but in vain. Kate could have burst into tears of rage. She was hot, tired, dusty, and—worst of all—thwarted. It was hateful to feel herself helpless in the plotters' hands, being made to dance when they pulled the strings, and to know that this "horrid little brown man" was secretly laughing at her behind his polite air of concern. Yet she was helpless, and had to acknowledge it. If she left the doctor and went off on an expedition of independent exploration she would not know which way to go, and might get into trouble. But at last she could no longer bear her wrongs in silence; and, after all, she had nothing to gain by being nice to Dr. Grayle.

"I suppose you think," she burst out angrily, "that you are making a fool of me, and that I don't know it. But I'm not as simple as you seem to believe. I'm perfectly well aware that there's a mystery going on, and that all these elaborate precautions are to keep me out of it."

Dr. Grayle raised his eyebrows. "Then you are much more enlightened than I am," he returned mildly. "I'm really quite at loss to know what you mean, Lady Gardiner."

"In plain words, I mean that you are walking me off my feet to cover the others' escape. You know perfectly well where they are, but they've ordered you to keep out of the way, and you are doing as you're told, like a nice, obedient little man. I never was so abominably treated in my life."

"I can't see, even if Miss Beverly and her two relations choose to go off for a little private sight-seeing on their own account, that either you or I have anything to complain of," said the doctor. "We are outsiders, and are both very well paid for our services. My opinion is that few persons in our position receive as much consideration from their employers as we do."

Kate was so furious at this snub (which found a vital spot) that she was literally speechless for a moment. She would have liked to strike the impertinent little wretch who dared put her on a level with himself; but she could hardly do that, even in Noumea. When the wave of angry blood flowed back from her brain, and she recovered presence of mind, she turned abruptly and walked away from the doctor. But he was at her side again almost immediately, keeping up with her without any appearance of haste, though she quickened her pace in spite of fatigue, looking as cool, as serene, as if he had been taking an afternoon stroll in Bond Street. Evidently he had torn a leaf out of Roger Broom's book; and Kate recalled the forgotten fact that it was Roger who had recommended him to Virginia's notice.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "but you are now going toward that part of the town which was burnt down at the time of the plague here, about three years ago. It is leading you rather out of the way of the hotel, where we were all to meet for luncheon; but perhaps you have a curiosity to see it? I have studied a map of the place, and if you like can point out——"

"I do not like!" Lady Gardiner cut in sharply. "I wish to send a cablegram."

"Unfortunately, that is impossible."

"What! One can't telegraph from this loathsome place?"

"I thought you were so charmed with it? One cannot telegraph to-day."

"Why not to-day? Is it a holiday for the operators?"

"So far as we are concerned."

"Ah! I see what you mean now. You intend to prevent my communicating with my friends! But this is too much. I will do so."

"I fancied you were attached to Miss Beverly."

"What has that to do with it?"

"A good deal. We are Miss Beverly's guests—or her servants, whichever you please. In either case, we surely owe her fealty. I have been informed that she does not wish to have any communication made with the outside world, from Noumea."

"I was not informed of this mandate."

"I dare say she thought that you would be guided by my counsel."

"Counsel! A strange word for your tyranny. At least, I suppose, there are no orders against returning to the hotel?"

"None. So long as we are discreet."

"And in what does your idea of discretion consist, pray?"

"Keeping ourselves to ourselves. They are rather suspicious folk in New Caledonia. Few tourists come this way. Probably we are the first people who have landed here not on business for many a long year."

"I am not at all sure that we haven't come on business—very particular business."

"I wouldn't make that remark before anybody else, if I were you. You might—get into trouble."

As Dr. Grayle said this he looked steadily at Lady Gardiner. Their eyes met, and so peculiarly cold and menacing was the expression of his that she felt unpleasantly chilled, and even subdued. Those steady eyes so underscored his words with sinister meaning, that Kate dared not ask whether the "trouble" to which he suggestively referred would come to her through him or the inhabitants of Noumea. She thought that he looked capable of reducing her to helplessness by violence, if she showed signs of resisting his will, and she relapsed into silence. But she had not given up the hope of cabling to Loria. She resolved to watch her chance.

They walked back to the Hotel de France, but the others had not returned, though the time fixed was long past. Kate was so hungry and weary that again she could have wept, and was secretly glad when Dr. Grayle ordered luncheon for two, though the prospect of a meal tete-a-tete was not enjoyable. She complained, however, of being too warm and dusty to eat, unless she could refresh herself by splashing a little in cold water, and she had to look down to hide the light which flashed into her eyes when Grayle consented without protest to her taking a room, and re-making her toilet before lunch.

"Now I shall get off that cable," she said to herself. Hardly had she entered the bare, poorly furnished bedroom when she rang, and stood waiting eagerly for a servant to answer the summons. Presently came the expected knock. She flew to open the door, and—there stood the little doctor, behind him approaching a maid, probably an ex-convict.

"You rang, Lady Gardiner," said Dr. Grayle, "to ask for a telegraph form, just as you might in a civilized place, didn't you? But this isn't a civilized place, and the methods are not all civilized. Now, here is the servant you rang for. If you persist in carrying out your intention I shall lock you in this room, take the key, and tell the landlord that you are a harmless lunatic, under my medical supervision. I think I shall not in that case lack for assistance in keeping you within bounds."

Kate glared at him, panting, for a moment. Then, controlling her voice, she asked the servant in French for some hot water. Having done this, she slammed the door in the little man's face, which was the only satisfaction she got out of the incident. She was inclined to remain sulking in the bedroom, but though the spirit was willing the flesh was weak, and the pangs of hunger drove her forth. Dr. Grayle was awaiting her in the corridor, a watchdog, patient and placid.

* * * * *

The missing three did no more aimless sauntering after they had slipped round a corner and eluded Kate Gardiner's curious eyes. Had their business not been of life-and-death importance, they would have felt like children escaped from school; since the least imprudence might lose them the stake for which they played, and Kate's presence had been a check and cause of delay. Fortunately, it was not yet the hour of dejeuner, even in Noumea, and they made up for lost time by hastening to the Governor's offices, which were in a white-painted, two-story building of wood, with a verandah facing the almost deserted street.

It was Sir Roger Broom who had used his influence in obtaining a special letter from the Minister of Colonies to the Governor of New Caledonia, and he now sent it in with his card, and those of his friends, by a clerk. For a few moments they waited, soldiers in gay uniforms, gendarmes and convict messengers passing in and out on various errands, all gazing with surprised, if furtive, interest at the extraordinarily beautiful girl in white. Presently the Governor was ready to receive his guests, and his turn came to be astonished by Virginia. She was the first lady who had ever come to Noumea, he said, on a journey of pleasure. Ah, the American young ladies, they were wonderful, amazing! He asked a few questions about the yacht, the trip they had had, and his old friend the Minister of Colonies, then countersigned the credentials for the party, and dashed off a letter to the Director of the Penitentiary Administration.

It was upon the latter official that everything depended. So far all was satisfactory; but if the Director (who was supreme in authority over the prison, not answerable even to the Governor) chose to be ungracious, they might go back whence they had come without even attempting that bold stroke in the hope of which they had paid this visit. They had dared, however, show no signs of their consuming anxiety. With smiling thanks they bade good-bye to the Governor and went on, in the fitful silence of suspense, to the Direction.

Again the letters and cards were borne away by a clerk. There was more waiting; and when they were ushered into a large, cool, dusky room, strangely still behind its heavy double doors, Virginia was glad of the gloom, lest her pallor should excite suspicion.

Afterward Roger and George said to each other that if it had not been for Virginia they believed the Director would have politely, but firmly, refused to grant the special privileges they craved. Others had received ordinary permits to "view" the penitentiary establishment, yet very few, indeed (save those who went because they must), had been suffered by the authorities to pass the prison gates. But what Frenchman could refuse any favour in his power to the all-conquering Virginia? The Director would have been well within his rights, and could not have been accused of discourtesy, if he had allowed a certain short, concise sentence at the left-hand corner of the official sheet of paper which he signed, to remain. But instead he scratched it out with two quick strokes of the pen; and the doors of the prison and its cells were practically thrown open.

He, too, asked questions, and seemed wistfully loth to part with these interesting visitors from a far-away world, whose echoes he seldom heard. He smiled indulgently when Virginia fluently told the story prepared beforehand: the book she and her brother had been commissioned to write by a prominent American publishing firm; how it was to be all about this yachting trip, with Noumea as the piece de resistance of the story. They expected, George Trent chimed in by saying, to stop on board their yacht in the harbour for a day or two perhaps, but (and he made the most of his engaging Southern accent) what they particularly wanted was to "do" the Ile Nou, which all the books said was so "mighty" interesting.

The Director obligingly scrawled a letter to the Commandant of the prison in New Caledonia, explained to his guests what they must do, and cordially invited them to lunch with him. The thought of eating was repulsive to Virginia; but Roger telegraphed her a warning look, and she knew that she must accept. It would not be wise to let it be seen that they were in a hurry; they were eccentric pleasure-seekers, sea-tourists; to be in haste was to throw aside disguise.

After dejeuner, which seemed interminable, they were allowed to depart. So to a group of white, gray-roofed buildings set in brilliant little squares of garden—the offices of the executive police. Passing on, they reached a small wooden quay, belonging to the penitential administration. Men in ugly gray clothing, their faces shaded with broad, ribbonless straw hats, were working at loading a boat with large boxes, which they carried to the quay from a truck on a miniature local railway line. These men were directed in their labour by other men in white; and Virginia shivered all over, for this was her first sight of the convicts. What if Maxime Dalahaide were among these forlorn wretches who toiled and sweated in the blazing sun, with no encouragement save the rough exhortations of the white-clad surveillants with revolvers on their hips? If he were here, did any voice whisper to him of hope?

The canot for the Ile Nou was to start almost immediately. The credentials of the party were examined at the douanerie, and they were permitted to go on board. Twelve convicts were the rowers. They sat under an awning which protected them as well as the passengers from the sun, but Virginia, glancing almost fearfully at their faces, saw that their skins were tanned to the colour of mahogany by exposure. Their features were, without one exception, marked with the indefinable yet not-to-be-mistaken stamp of criminality, and she breathed more freely when she had assured herself that the man they sought was not one of them.

All they had to go upon was the vague information derived from Madeleine Dalahaide, that her brother was supposed to be on the Ile Nou. The time had not come yet to ask the questions that burnt their tongues; but it was coming nearer now with each wide sweep of the convicts' oars.

The Director had been thoughtful enough to telegraph to the Ile Nou of the visitors' arrival, and as the canot approached the quay of the strange little settlement, an officer of the prison, who had the appearance of a superior warder, stepped forward, touching his white hat.

Virginia felt, with a thickly beating heart, that the long preface was finished, the first chapter of the book about to begin. She looked at this island of exile and punishment with an emotion that was not curiosity, but which could be classified by no other word. The Ile Nou was not to the eye the terrible place of which she had so often dreamt. There were more low, white houses, clustering cosily together or separated by thick, dark trees, and there were shaded streets and more blazing flamboyant flowers making patches of red in the deep green. But beyond the town rose a hill, and there the great prison buildings stood out grimly against the cloudless blue of the tropical sky.

They landed. The warder begged them with French politeness to give themselves the trouble of accompanying him to the quarters of the Commandant, who expected their visit.

The programme of conspiracy was all planned; each one's part had been carefully mapped out, and a thousand times Virginia had gone through the ordeal of this day in her mind. Yet now the beating in her temples confused her thoughts. She was afraid that she should forget, that she should make some irretrievable blunder, and that everything would be ruined by her fault. But much might depend now upon a look or a gesture, and she held herself in a vice of self-control, fearing that her smile on greeting the courteous old Commandant was suspiciously forced, her voice unnatural, or the look in her eyes a betrayal of desperate anxiety.

But the gallant Frenchman saw only the most entrancing vision of a girl his eyes had ever looked upon. Within the bounds of reason—which meant in honour and within the regulations of the establishment—he would have done anything to win one of those distracting smiles which brought into play two little round dimples. He ordered his own carriage to take his guests to the grim hill behind the town; he sat by Virginia as they were driven up the white, winding road; and when at last the convict coachman drew up the horses at a great door of black iron in the blank side of a high white wall, it was he who helped her to alight.

"You will be the only lady, not the wife or daughter of an official of the place, who has ever entered at this gate, mademoiselle," he remarked as the key of the surveillant grated in the lock.

The door opened, and Virginia passed through, trembling, the Commandant at her side. They were in a long, oddly-shaped courtyard. "The place of execution," said her guide. "In the early morning, at sunrise, a condemned man is brought here to die by the guillotine. Through that door yonder he comes, the priest walking by his side. To-morrow there will be such an execution. But I suppose you would scarcely care to see that, mademoiselle?"

"Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Virginia, shuddering. "I would die myself, sooner. What has he done—this unfortunate one—that he must suffer death?"

"He attempted to escape——"

"What—you kill them for that, if—they are retaken?"

"No; but wait, mademoiselle. I will tell you the story. It may be of use as an anecdote for the book you will write. This man who is to die to-morrow morning, and who will not know that his time has come until the knock at the door of his cell when the hour strikes—this man and another, who were imprisoned at the Isle of Pines, stole a small open fishing-boat, and with the branch of a tree for a mast and a shirt for a sail, started out in the desperate hope of eventually reaching Australia. But the alarm was soon given, and they were pursued by such a canot as that in which you came here, mademoiselle, from Noumea. One of the fugitives was mad enough to jump from the boat, scarcely knowing what he did. In a moment he had ceased to live."

"He was shot?"

"Ah, no, mademoiselle. The waters here are literally alive with sharks. Bathing even near shore is dangerous. A little farther out—but I will say no more. You grow pale."

"That is nothing. And the other man—what of him?"

"He was captured; but he is a young, athletic fellow, and in his fury at being retaken he snatched a surveillant's revolver and shot him dead. He was tried, condemned to death, and to-morrow at sunrise, as I said, will expiate his crime and folly."

Virginia was very white now—almost as white as the frock which she had chosen from her prettiest for the subjugation of these men in authority.

"What is the man's name?" she ventured to ask, her voice sounding strange and metallic in her own ears, her lips dry.



CHAPTER VIII

NUMBER 1280

"The man is without a name," said the Commandant. "He is a number. But once he was known as Jean Fourneau."

Virginia breathed again. "And the one who was with him?"

"The man eaten by the sharks? He was called, in the world, Pierre Duval."

The girl could hardly restrain a murmur of the infinite relief she felt. But she dared show no emotion. "I suppose you have all sorts and conditions of men here?" she asked.

"From the highest to the lowest."

"Then there must be many interesting cases—quite romances. Do tell us something about a few of the best."

"That is difficult. There are many cases which might interest you; but they would shock you as well."

"I would trust you to choose. Have you any young men of good family who, perhaps, committed their crimes for love?"

The Commandant smiled. "We have many such. There is the man who is called the New Caledonian Dreyfus—Chatelain—who sold his country to please the woman he loved. He is at Ducos. But perhaps the most notable example of the type you desire is a young scion of French and English aristocracy whom we have here, on the Ile Nou. He is now known as Number 1280; but a few years ago he figured brilliantly in the great world as Maxime Dalahaide. You may have heard of him, mademoiselle."

The words rang strangely in the girl's ears. She "might have heard of him"! But her presence of mind had not left her, as a few moments ago she had feared it might, when it should be needed most.

She was simply carrying out her part of the programme, and she knew that Roger and George were watching her from behind half-closed lids. If they could help her they would; but the time had not come for their help yet.

"I left America only a year ago," she answered, "and one forgets things of this sort when they happen very far away."

"Naturally. But it was an uncommon case. Maxime Dalahaide was condemned to death for murdering a beautiful young actress, with whom he was in love—jealousy alleged as the cause. However, powerful influence saved him from death and sent him to us. I do not know that he was properly thankful."

Virginia showed a little decorous interest, such as a stranger might legitimately take in the hero of such a tale. "This story ought to make a splendid anecdote for our book," she exclaimed. "Is the man handsome?"

"You might not think so if you saw him now. The costume of the forcat is not becoming. But he is still quite young, between twenty-eight and nine. You can see his portrait if you like, mademoiselle, at the Bureau of Anthropometry, where each convict's photograph is taken, with every possible view of his face, when he first becomes an inmate of the prison."

"I would rather see the man himself," answered Virginia. "If you would only let my brother and me have an interview with him; think how it would help our book! Ah, monsieur, that would be kind. I should never forget your goodness in giving me such a chance."

The gallant Commandant hesitated. But—the permit in the possession of these three favoured visitors was very explicit. They were to have privileges scarcely ever granted before, and he had therefore the best of excuses for obliging the beautiful American girl.

"Do say yes!" persuasively added Virginia.

"I really think I may conscientiously do so," replied the old Frenchman, delighted to please the most radiant being he had seen for many a long year. "Number 1280 has acted for some time as secretary in one of the bureaux; but another convict, displaced for Dalahaide because of carelessness and inaccuracy, was jealous of the favour shown the aristocrat (ah, I assure you they know all about each other's affairs and circumstances here!), contrived to make a rough knife out of a piece of flint, and stabbed his rival in the back, narrowly missing the lungs. As it was, the wound was a serious one, and Dalahaide is in the hospital. The would-be murderer is now undergoing punishment in what we call the Black Cell."

"The wound was not actually dangerous?" Roger hastened to inquire, seeing that Virginia's lips were white.

"He ought not to be dangerously ill," said the Commandant. "He is young, and quite one of our athletes—or was. The life he had led here, though not what he would choose, has not been unhealthful. But the doctor, with whom I have discussed his case, says that the wish to recover is lacking. The man is hopeless. He would rather die than live; and his physician thinks it exceedingly likely that he will do so."

"That is sad," said Sir Roger, his eyes still on Virginia.

The Commandant shrugged his shoulders. "We are accustomed to sadness here," he replied. "But the exile and degradation of Noumea are no doubt harder of endurance to a man like Dalahaide—proud, sensitive, refined, intellectual, accustomed to every luxury. He was like a madman when he first came, four or five years ago. Several times he attempted escape and suicide. Then he became sullenly despairing; but I began to take an interest in him, believing that he was not at bottom such a desperate character as the surveillants had grown to consider him. I did what I could to soften his lot, having him introduced to more congenial work in the bureau; but this was not until he had known three months in the Black Cell. Some men lose their minds in the Cachot Noir, though its horrors have been mitigated of late years. But Dalahaide's brain did not fail; and he has proved a valuable man at secretarial work. Also during the plague, three years ago, he volunteered as a nurse, and was admirable. You shall see him in hospital, since you wish it, and even talk with him; but you must not leave New Caledonia with the impression that all convicts are like this man. Now we will finish the inspection of the prison here, and then my carriage shall drive us to the hospital, which is at a little distance."

How Virginia got through the next half-hour she did not know. If she had dared, she would have begged to go on at once to the hospital; but she did not dare. It was necessary to submit to the delay of being guided through the prison, to be shown the galleries and the cells, the Pretoire, and to hear patiently the explanation of the Bertillon system. At last, however, they were once more in the carriage which had been kept waiting for them; but even then they must still exercise patience, for a Disciplinary Camp was on the road along which they must pass, and to betray too much eagerness to reach their journey's end (when avowedly they had come to New Caledonia for information) would have been dangerous. At the camp they must perforce squander twenty or thirty minutes, Virginia and George pretending to take notes of what they saw and heard; and then they turned westward. Before them stretched a long avenue of strangely bent and sloping palms. It was the avenue of the hospital.

They drove down it to a stone archway, glittering white in the sun, and saw beyond a green and shaded garden, jewelled with gorgeous flowers, and heavy with richly mingling scents.

"If Dalahaide is no worse to-day, we shall probably find him in the garden here," said the Commandant. "He must have read at least half a dozen times an old copy of Dante which I lent him; the books in the prison library are not much to his taste."

No one answered, not even Roger. In fact, at the moment Roger was more anxious, perhaps, than any other member of the party, for he realized the existence of a certain danger which Virginia and her brother had apparently lost sight of, although long ago it had been discussed by them all. It had also been provided against; but the suggestion that Maxime Dalahaide might be met here in the garden, the thought that at any moment they might come upon him suddenly and unexpectedly, upset these prudent calculations.

As Maxime and Roger had known each other five years ago, it had been decided that a meeting must be avoided at first, lest in his surprise at seeing a familiar face—like a ghost from another world—the prisoner should cry out, and involuntarily put those who watched upon their guard. The three had planned among themselves, when this day was still in the future, that if they should succeed in their first step, and gain access to Maxime Dalahaide, Roger must keep in the background until his mind had been prepared by Virginia and George Trent for what was to come. The other two, as strangers to him, could approach the prisoner without risk. But they had expected to see him, if at all, in some room or cell, to which certain members of the party might be conducted by request; while here, in this vast garden, with its ambushes of trees and shrubs, any one of the half-hidden gray figures which they could distinguish in the green shadows might prove to be Dalahaide.

Roger did not know what to do. He might offer to stop behind and wait in the carriage outside the garden gates. But if he did this it would seem strange and even ungracious to the Commandant, who was taking so much trouble to entertain them, and to "seem strange" was alone enough to constitute danger. He compromised, keeping behind with George, while Virginia walked ahead with the old Frenchman.

In the midst of the garden stood the quadrangular building of the hospital, the steep roof forming broad verandahs. There were gray figures sitting or lounging there also, but the Commandant said that Number 1280 would not be found among these, for he fled as much as might be from the society of his fellow-convicts.

They turned the corner of a shaded path and came out under a green canopy made by four large palms. A man lay underneath, his head pillowed on his arm, his face upturned—a man in the sordid prison gray. Virginia Beverly grew giddy, and, brave as she had been so far, for an instant she feared that she was going to faint like an ordinary, stay-at-home girl. She started, and caught at the arm of the Commandant, who turned to her in concerned surprise.

"One would think you had guessed that this was our man," he said in a low voice, for the convict, whose face was ghastly pale in the green dusk, seemed to sleep.

"I beg your pardon," whispered Virginia. "I stepped on a stone and twisted my foot. Is this, then, the man we have come to find?"

How well she knew that it was he! How well she knew, though the terrible years had changed the brave young face in the portrait almost beyond the recognition of a stranger. All the gay audacity was gone, therefore much of the individuality which had distinguished it for Virginia. The strong, clear features of the man looked, as he lay there asleep, as if they had been carved from old ivory; the lines were sharpened, there were hollows in the cheeks and under the black lines of the lashes. Even in sleep the dark brows were drawn together in a slight frown, and the clean-cut lips drooped in unutterable melancholy. The figure, lying on its back and extended along the grass, appeared very tall, and lay so still that it might have been the form of a dead man.

Roger, without seeing the sleeping face, guessed by the abrupt stop and the low-spoken words of the two in front that Maxime Dalahaide was found. He drew back slightly, with a meaning glance at George, who stepped forward to join the others.

Suddenly the black line of lashes trembled; a pair of dark, tragic eyes, more like those of Madeleine Dalahaide than the laughing ones of the portrait, opened and looked straight into Virginia's. For a few seconds their gaze remained fixed, as if the white vision had been a broken dream; then a deep flush spread over the thin face of the young man, and he rose to his feet.

"This lady and her brother have come a long way to see New Caledonia," said the Commandant kindly. "They wish to talk to you."

Maxime Dalahaide bowed. Virginia saw that he pressed his lips together, and that the muscles of his face quivered. She guessed how he must suffer at having to gratify—as he supposed—the morbid curiosity of a girl, and it hurt her to think that she must be the one to give him this added pain.

She turned to the Commandant, and, with a voice not quite steady, asked if she and her brother might speak to the man alone. She felt that she should be less embarrassed in her questions, she said, if no one listened. With a smile the old Frenchman consented, bowing like a courtier, and joined Roger Broom, who stood at a little distance out of sight of the convict.

"I thought there was no use embarrassing the poor fellow with any more strangers," Roger explained to the Commandant, as they moved further away down the path by which they had come. "After all, my place in this expedition is only to take a few photographs, wherever they are permitted"; and he touched the camera, slung over his shoulder, of which he had already made ostentatious use on several occasions. "May I have a snapshot of the hospital, with all those chaps on the verandahs? Thanks; we must go a little to the right, then. By Jove! what a lot of gray figures there are about. How do you make sure they can't escape, if they choose, out here where they don't seem to be guarded?"