There was a sudden roar far down in the bowels of the vessel, and immediately volumes of steam issued from every skylight. The inrushing sea had broken down the bulk-heads, the water had reached the engine-rooms. In an instant Luke was alive to the danger—the good sailor that was within the man all awake. His trained ears and the tread of his feet on the deck told him that the screw was still.

"Come," he cried to Agatha, "you must get away in the next boat."

But Agatha resisted his arm. That which had hitherto been mere pertness in her manner and carriage had suddenly grown into a strong determination. The woman was cool and fearless.

"Not without you," she answered. "I will not leave the ship until you do."

"I must stay till the last," he said.

She looked at him with a little smile, for women love courage, though it sometimes frightens them. She never dreamt of danger to either of them. Her trust in Luke was all-sufficient, without reserve, without hesitation.

"Then I will stay too."

For a moment his iron nerve—a nerve which had deliberately planned all this destruction—wavered.

"Why did you not let me know you were coming?" he asked desperately.

"I had no time," she answered, with a singular shortness, for she could not tell him that a letter from Mrs. Harrington to her mother- -the companion to that received by Luke at Valetta—had brought about this sudden decision. She could not tell him that, egged on by a transparent hint from Mrs. Harrington that Luke was to be her heir, she and her mother had taken the first boat to Malta; that she had deliberately planned to marry him for the money that was to be his. Such a confession was impossible at that time; with his arms still round her, the mere thought of it nauseated her. For a moment, she saw herself as others had seen her—a punishment which for some women is quite sufficient.

At this moment a man came running along the deck—the same quartermaster who had taken charge of Mrs. Ingham-Baker. He was a man of no nerves whatever, and of considerable humour.

"Any more ladies?" he was shouting as he ran. "Any more for the shore?"

He laughed at his own conceit as he ran—the same fearless laugh with which he sent Mrs. Ingham-Baker down the gangway to her death. He paused, saw Luke and Agatha standing together beneath the lamp.

"Captain's callin' you like hell!" he cried. "Engine-room's full. The old ship's got it this time, sir."

"All right, I know," answered Luke curtly; and the man ran on, shouting as he went.

At this moment the Croonah gave a shiver, and Luke looked round hastily. He ran to the rail and looked over with a quick sailor's glance fore and aft. He turned towards Agatha again, but before he could reach her the steamer gave a lurch over to starboard. The deck seemed to rise between them. For a moment Agatha stood above him, then she half ran, half fell, down the short steep incline into his arms. Luke was ready for her, with one foot against the rail— for the deck was at an angle of thirty and more; no one could stand on it. He caught her deftly, and the breeze whirling round the deck-house blew her long hair across his face.

She never changed colour. There was the nucleus of a good and strong woman somewhere in Agatha Ingham-Baker. She clung to her lover's arms and watched his face with a faith that nothing could shake. Thus they stood during three eternal seconds while the Croonah seemed to hesitate, poised on the brink. Then the great steamer slowly slid backwards, turning a little as she did so.

There was a sickening sound of gurgling water. The Croonah was afloat, but only for a few seconds. There was no time to lower another boat, and all on board knew it. There were not many remaining, for the passengers had all left the ship—the stokers, the engineers. Amidships the captain stood, surrounded by his officers and a few European sailors—faithful to the end. They had only one boat left, and that was forward, half under water—out of the question. So they stood and waited for the ship to sink beneath them.

In the distance, on the rough sea, now grey in the light of a sullen dawn, two boats were approaching, having landed their human freight on Burling Island.

"Now, my lads," cried the captain, "if any of you are feeling like going overboard, over you go."

One man slowly took off his coat. He stooped down and unlaced his boots, while the others watched him. It seemed to take him hours. The bows of the great steamer were almost buried in the broken seas; her stern was raised high in the air, showing the screw and the rudder.

The man who preferred to swim for it looked round with a strange smile into the quiet, rough faces of his undismayed companions. It seemed to be merely a choice of deaths.

"Well, mates," he said, "so long!"

He dived overboard and swam slowly away.

Luke watched him speculatively. He knew that had he been alone he could have saved himself quite easily. With Agatha his chances were less certain. Agatha it was who had spoilt his careful calculation. Without conceit—for he was a stubbornly self-depreciating man—he knew that his absence from his captain's side had just made the difference—the little difference between life and death—to twenty or thirty people. Had he been beside the captain and the other officers the native crew would have worked quietly and intrepidly; there would have been time for all hands to leave the Croonah before she slipped back into deep water.

The great steamer rolled slowly from side to side, like a helpless dumb animal in death agony, but she never righted herself, her decks were never level. At length she gave a roll to leeward and failed to recover herself. From some air-shaft there came a ceaseless whistle, deep and sonorous, like the emission of air from the bunghole of a beer-barrel. The engines were quite still, even the steam had ceased to rise.

Luke stood holding Agatha with one arm. He was watching the two boats making their way through the choppy sea towards them, and Agatha was watching his face.

The Croonah was now lying right over on her beam ends. Luke was standing on the wire network of the rail. Suddenly he threw himself backwards, and as they fell through space Agatha heard the captain's voice quite distinctly, as from the silence of another world.

"She's going!" he cried.

They struck the water together, Luke undermost, as he had intended. Agatha shut her eyes and clung to him. They seemed to go down and down. Then suddenly she heard Luke's voice.

"Take a breath," he gasped short and sharp. His voice was singularly stern.

With his disengaged hand he put her hair from her face. She opened her eyes and saw him smiling at her; she saw a huge piece of wreckage poised on the edge of a wave over his head; she saw it fall; she felt the shock of it.

Luke's arm lost its hold; he rolled over feebly in the water, the blood running down his face, a sudden sense of sleep in his brain. He awoke again to find himself swimming mechanically, and opened his eyes. Close to him something white was floating half under water. Spread out over the surface of the wave Agatha's long hair rose and fell like seaweed, almost within his grasp. It was like a horrible nightmare. He tried to reach it, but his arms were powerless; he could not make an inch of progress; he could only keep himself afloat. Agatha's face was under water. On the rise of a wave he saw her little bare foot; it was quite still. He knew that she was dead, and the blessed sleepiness took him again, dragging him down.

. . . . .

So the last of the Croonah was her good name written large on a yellow telegram form, nailed to the panel of the room technically known as the Chamber of Horrors at Lloyd's.

Around this telegram a group of grave-faced men stood in silence, or with muttered words of surprise.

"The Croonah!" they said, "the Croonah!" as if a pillar of their faith had fallen. For once no one had a theory: no carpet mariner could explain this thing.

Against the jamb of the window, behind them all, Willie Carr stood leaning.

"Done anything on her?" some one asked him.

"Yes, bad luck," he answered. "Had friends on her, too."

It was a long and expansive telegram, giving the list of the lost, twenty-nine in all, and among the names were mentioned Mrs. Ingham- Baker and her daughter.

"Ship in charge of second officer," said the telegram. And lower down, at the foot of the fatal list: "Second officer picked up unconscious. Doing well."

Suddenly Willie Carr moved, and, turning his back somewhat hastily, looked out of the window.

Fitz had just come into the dreary, fateful little room, conducted thither by the Admiralty agent. He read the telegram carefully from beginning to end.

"Luke on the Burlings!" he muttered, as he turned to go. "Luke! I can't understand it. He must have been mad!"

And after all Fitz only spoke the truth; but it was a madness to which we are all subject.



CHAPTER XIII. AT D'ERRAHA AGAIN.

There is no statute so sublime As Love's in all the world; and e'en to kiss The pedestal is still a better bliss Than all ambitions.

Three years later Eve was sitting on the terrace of the Casa d'Erraha. It was late autumn, and we who live in Northern latitudes do not quite realise what the autumn of Southern Europe is. Artists and others interested in the beauties of nature love a dry summer for the autumn that is sure to follow it. In Spain and in the islands of the Mediterranean every summer is dry, and every autumn is beautiful.

The Casa d'Erraha has not changed in any way—nothing changes in the Balearics. The same soft Southern odours creep up from the valley to battle with the strong resinous scent of the pines that crown the mountains.

Eve had been a year in D'Erraha—the whole of her married life. The Count de Lloseta placed the house at their disposal for the honeymoon. Fitz and she came to stay a month; they had remained twelve. It is often so in Majorca. A number of Spaniards came six hundred years ago—nine families; the nine names are there to-day.

Fitz had taken D'Erraha on the Minorcan rotas lease, so the old valley, the old house, was his.

Eve was not alone on the terrace, for a certain small gentleman, called Henry Cyprian FitzHenry, a prospective sailor, lay in a pink and perfect slumber on her lap. Henry Cyprian fully appreciated the valley of repose.

Eve was reading a letter—a lamentable scrawl, by the way—obviously the work of a hand little used to the pen.

"My dearie," the letter ran; and it bore the address—Malabar Cottage, Somarsh, Suffolk.

"MY DEARIE,—Please thank your good husband for his letter to me announcing the birth of your son. I hope the little man is doing well. Make a sailor of him. Being one myself I have had opportunity of noticing seafaring men under different circumstances, and I have never had an occasion to be ashamed of a shipmate, only excepting when he was drunk, which is human, so to speak. Thanking the captain kindly for his inquiries, I have to advise that all is going well at Malabar Cottage. The cottage keeps taut and staunch; and now that my old shipmate Creary has joined me, we keep to the weather side of the butcher's bill without any difficulty. We pull along on a even keel wonderfully well, Creary being a good-natured man, and as pleasant a shipmate as one could wish. He has brought his bits of things with him, and alongside of mine they make a homely look. I miss your voice about the house, and sometimes I feel a bit lonely, but being a rough seafaring man I know that Malabar Cottage was hardly fit for a lady like yourself. The Count de Lloseta has twice been down to see me, sitting affable down to our bit of lunch with us and making Creary laugh till he choked. I don't rightly understand how it was that the Count and your good husband the captain (R.N.) fixed up my money affairs, getting so much of it back from Merton's while others haven't had a halfpenny. I asked the Count to explain, which he did at some length. But I didn't rightly understand it, never having had a good head for figures, though I could always work out my sums near enough to fix her position on the chart at mid-day. I take it that Mr. Lloseta has got a gift for financials, leastwise he pays me my money most regular, and last time there was two pounds more. I am sure I ought to feel thankful that I have such good friends, and people, too, so much above me. I understand that the Count de Lloseta is going out to Majorca this autumn. He is a good man.—Your affectionate uncle,

"WILLIAM JOHN BONTNOR (Master)."

Eve read this effusion with a queer little smile which had no mirth in it. She folded the letter carefully and laid it aside for her husband to see when he returned. Then she fell into a reverie, looking down over the great silent valley that lay between her and the sea. She had been out into the world and had come back to D'Erraha again. In the world she had had a somewhat singular experience. She had never loved a woman, she had never known a woman's love. One man after another had come into her life, passing across the field of her mental vision when it was most susceptible to impression, each influencing her life in his own way, each loving her in his own way, each claiming her love. Here was a woman, the mother of a boy, whose every thought had been formed by men, whose knowledge had been acquired from men, whose world was a world of men. She would not have known what to do with a daughter, so Fate had sent her a son. From the Caballero Challoner to Fitz, from Fitz to Captain Bontnor, from Captain Bontnor to John Craik, and from Craik back to Fitz, this, with Cipriani de Lloseta ever coming and going, in and out, had been Eve FitzHenry's life.

These men had only taught her to be a woman, as men ever do; but from them she had acquired the broader way of taking life, the larger way of thinking, which promised well for Henry Cyprian lying asleep on her lap.

She was thinking of these men, for all they had taught her, of all she had learnt from them without their knowing it, when one of them came to her. Fitz had dismounted in the patio and came walking somewhat stiffly through to the terrace. He had been out all day on a distant part of the D'Erraha property, for he combined the farmer and the sailor. He had applied for a year's leave after having served his country for fifteen. The year had run into fifteen months, and there was talk of the time when he should go to sea no longer.

Fitz had changed little. The cloud, however, that had formerly hung as it were in his eyes had vanished. Eve had driven it away, slowly and surely. Perhaps Henry Cyprian had something to do in the matter also by pushing his uncle Luke out of the place he had hitherto occupied in Fitz's heart. Luke had voluntarily relinquished the place to a certain degree. He had left England three years before to seek his fortune in other seas, and Fortune had come to him as she often does when she is sought half-heartedly. Luke commanded one of the finest war-ships afloat, but she sailed under the Chilean flag.

"Letters," said Fitz.

Eve smiled and handed him Captain Bontnor's epistle. She watched his face as he read—she had a trick of watching her husband's face. This was a hopelessly taciturn man, but Eve seemed to understand him.

There was another letter unopened and addressed to Fitz. He took it up and opened it leisurely, after the manner of one who has all he wants and looks for nothing by post.

Eve saw his face brighten with surprise. He read the letter through, and then he handed it to her.

"Lloseta," he said, "is coming. He is in Barcelona."

Eve read the letter. She leant back in her deep chair with a pensiveness, a faint suggestion of weariness bespeaking the end of a convalescence, which was perhaps climatic.

"I have never understood the Count," she said. "There are so many people one does not understand."

She broke off with a little laugh, half impatient.

"Yes," said her husband quietly. "Whom are you thinking of?"

"Agatha."

Fitz was gazing at the fine quartz gravel beneath his feet.

"Agatha cared for Luke," he said.

A faint flicker of anxiety passed across Eve's eyes—the mention of Luke's name always brought it. She had never seen this twin brother—this shadow as it were of Fitz's life—and it had been slowly borne in upon her—perhaps Henry Cyprian had taught her—that there is a tie between twins which no man can gauge nor tell whither it may lead.

"Yes," she said quietly, "I know."

"How do you know? Did she tell you?"

Eve smiled.

"No; but I knew long ago. I do not think she was good, Fitz, but that was good in her—quite good. People say that it sometimes saves men. It often saves women. I think it is better for a girl to have no mother at all than to have a foolish mother, much better, I am sure of it."

"Women like Mrs. Ingham-Baker," said Fitz gruffly, "do more harm in the world than women who are merely bad. She made Agatha what she was, and Agatha made Luke throw away the Croonah."

"But the Court decided that it was an unusual current," said Eve, who had followed every word of the official inquiry.

Fitz shrugged his shoulders.

"He threw the ship away," he said. "Sailors like Luke do not get wrecked on the Burlings."

Eve did not pursue the subject, for this was the shadow on her happiness. It has been ruled that we are not to be quite happy here, and those are happiest who have a shadow that comes from outside—from elsewhere than from themselves or their own love.

Eve, womanlike, had thought of these things, analysing them as women do, and she recognised the shadow frankly. She was too intelligent, too far-sighted to expect perfect bliss, but she knew that she had as near an approach to it as is offered for human delectation, neutralised as it was by that vague regret which is only the reflection of the active sorrows of others.

Fitz had handed the Count's letter to his wife. She read it slowly and allowed it to drop. As it fluttered to her lap she caught sight of some writing on the back.

"Did you see the postscript?" she asked.

"No."

She turned the letter and read aloud.

"I saw Craik just before I left. He was, I think, in better health. His mind is much too brilliant, his brain too active, his humour too keen to be that of a sick man. When I told him your good news he quite forgot to be rheumatic. 'Glad to hear it, glad to hear it,' he said. 'She was much too good to be a mere writing woman.' By the way, I imagine Eve never learnt that all the Spanish articles, except the first, passed through my hands as well as Craik's before publication. I knew who wrote them, and am still one of their profoundest admirers, but, like John Craik, I am well content that the gifted author should turn her attention to other things, notably to my godson, to whom salutations. Did either of you ever meet young Lord Seahampton, an excellent fellow, with the appearance of a cleanly groom and the heart of a true knight? He was killed while riding a steeplechase last week. I regret him deeply. He was one of my few friends."

Eve laid the letter down with a little sigh, a species of sigh which she reserved for Cipriani de Lloseta.

"He is a nineteenth-century Quixote," she said. "No one ever knows what good he may be doing."

Then they fell to talking of this man, of what he had done and what he had left undone. They guessed at what he had suffered, and of the suffering which he had spared others they knew a little; but of his own feelings they were ignorant, his motives they only knew in part. His life had been lived out to a certain extent before them, but they knew nothing of it; it was a mere superficies without perspective, and Eve, woman-like, wanted to put a background to it.

"But why," she persisted, from the height of her own happiness, which had apparently been so easy to reach, "why does he lead such a lonely, gloomy life? Why has he so few friends? Why does he not come and live at Lloseta instead of in the gloomy palace in the Calle de la Paz?"

"His life is all whys," answered Fitz; "it is one big note of interrogation. He said that some day he would tell us; no doubt he will."

"Yes; perhaps so."

Eve reflected, and again she indulged in a short sigh.

"And after he has told us there will be nothing to be done, that is the worst of it; there will be nothing to be done, Fitz."

"There never has been anything to be done," replied Fitz slowly, as was his wont. "That has been the keynote of his life as long as I have known him. If there had been anything to do, you may be sure that De Lloseta would have done it."

Eve was bending over the small beginnings of a man lying supine on her knees. She drew Henry Cyprian's wraps closer around him preparatory to taking him indoors.

"Then his is surely the saddest life imaginable," she said.



CHAPTER XIV. THE COUNT'S STORY.

And yet I know That tears lie deep in all I do.

The pine forests on the mountain-tops were beginning to gather the darkness as the Count de Lloseta rode up the last slope to the Casa d'Erraha. The sun had just set behind the rocky land that hides Miramar from D'Erraha. A stillness seemed to be creeping down from the mountain to the valley. The wind had gone down with the sun.

The Count rode alone beneath the gloom of the maritime pines which grow to their finest European stature on the northern slope of D'Erraha. He had been in the saddle all day; but Cipriani de Lloseta was a Spaniard, and a Spaniard is a different man when he has thrown his leg across a horse. The suave indolence of manner seems to vanish, the courtly indifference, the sloth and contemplativeness which stand as a bar between our northern nature and the peninsular habit. De Lloseta was a fine horseman—even in Spain, the nation of finest horsemen in the world; also he was on Majorcan soil again. He had landed at Palma that morning from the Barcelona steamer, and he had found Fitz awaiting him with a servant and a led horse on the quay.

There was a strangely excited gleam in De Lloseta's dark eyes which Fitz did not fail to notice. The Count looked around over the dark wild faces of his countrymen and met no glance of recognition, for he had been absent forty years. Then he raised his eyes to the old city towering on the hillside above them, the city that has not changed these six hundred years, and he smiled a wan smile.

"I have brought a horse for you," said Fitz, "either to ride back to D'Erraha with me now or to take you to Lloseta, should you care to go direct there. Eve has packed up some lunch for you in the saddle-bag if you think of going to Lloseta first."

The Count nodded.

"Yes," he said, "that is like Eve; she would think of such things."

He went up to the horse, patted it, measured the length of the stirrup-leather, and then turned to Fitz.

"I will go to Lloseta," he said. "It is only natural after forty years. I will be with you by seven o'clock to-night at D'Erraha."

Fitz did not offer to accompany him, and Cipriani de Lloseta rode that strange ride alone; unknown, an outcast in his own land, he rode through the most fertile valley in the world, of which every tree was dear to him; and no man knew his thoughts. The labourers in the fields, men and women, brown, sunburnt, half Moorish, wholly simple and natural, paused in their toil and looked wonderingly at the lonely horseman; the patient mules walking their ceaseless round at the Moorish wells blinked lazily at him; the eagles of Lloseta swept slowly round in a great circle far above the old castle, as they had swept in his childhood, and he looked up at them with his strange patient smile. He pushed the great olive-wood gate open and passed into the terraced garden, all overgrown, neglected, mournful. It was a strange home-coming, with no one near to see.

He spent the whole day at Lloseta engaged in the very practical work of employing men to labour at the garden and in the house. It was, he said, his intention to come back to his "possession," as these Majorcan country houses are called, to inhabit it the larger part of the year, and to pass the remaining winter months at his palace in Palma.

In the afternoon he mounted his horse, and in the evening, as has been said, he reached D'Erraha.

A servant must have been watching his approach, for the large door was thrown open and he rode into the patio. Fitz was here to welcome him; and behind him Eve, with Henry Cyprian in her arms. No one spoke. It was rather singular. The Count dismounted. He took off his hat and held it in the Spanish mode in his hand while he shook hands with Fitz and Eve. He looked round the patio. He noted the old marble well, yellow with stupendous age, the orange trees clustering over it, the palms and the banana trees, then he smiled at Eve.

"After many years," he said.

There was a little pause.

"I should have wished to see your father," he said, "amidst these surroundings."

Eve gave a little nod. From long association with men she had learnt a manlike reticence. She moved a little towards the open archway leading through to the terrace.

"We have some tea," she said, "waiting for you. Will you come to the terrace?"

He followed her, while the servant led the tired horse away.

They sat at the northern end of the terrace, where the garden-chairs always stood, and before, beneath, all around them rose and fell the finest of all the fine Majorcan scenery—scenery which only Sardinia can rival in Europe.

Eve poured out his tea, which he drank, and set the cup aside.

They all knew that the time had come for the Count de Lloseta to tell his story—to redeem the promise made to Eve and Fitz long ago, before they were married.

Cipriani de Lloseta leant back in his deep garden-chair nursing one booted leg over the other. He was dusty and travel-stained, but the natural hardiness of his frame seemed to be more apparent than ever in his native land, on his native mountains.

"My poor little tale," he said; "you will have it?"

"Yes," said Eve; and Fitz nodded.

Cipriani de Lloseta did not look at them, but down into the gathering blue of the valley beneath them. His quiet, patient eyes never turned elsewhere during his narrative, as if he were telling the story to the valley and the hills.

"When I was quite a young man everything was too prosperous with me. I was rich, I had health and liberty and many friends; life was altogether too simple and easy for me. Before I was twenty-one I met my dear Rosa and fell in love with her. Here again it was too easy, too convenient. Fate is cruellest when she is too kind. The parents wished it. The two families were equally old, equally rich; and lastly Rosa—Rosa was kind enough to be—kind to me."

He paused, pensively rubbing his clean-shaven chin with his forefinger, his long profile was turned towards Eve, standing out like brown marble against the gloom of the valley. Eve wondered about this woman, this Rosa, who had been forty years in her grave. She wondered what manner of woman this must have been to have kept the love of a man through all these years by a mere memory, but she did not wonder that Rosa had been kind.

"She saw things in me that do not exist," Cipriani de Lloseta went on quietly. "It is so with women when—and men may thank God that it is so."

He gave a little laugh, unpleasant to the ear—the laugh of a man who has been right down to the bottom of life and comes up again with a sneer.

Eve and Fitz made no sign. This story was like wine that has lain forgotten in the dark for many years, it needed careful handling. Henry Cyprian turned on his silken cushion, and opening his great dark eyes watched the speaker with that infantine steadfastness of gaze which may perchance see more than we suspect.

"We were married"—he paused and gave a jerk of the head towards Palma, behind him to the left—"in the cathedral, and were quite happy. At that time the Harringtons were living, or rather staying, in this house with your good father. Neither of you ever saw the Honourable George Harrington; your loss is infinitesimal. For some reason they began to come to Lloseta a good deal—some reason of Mrs. Harrington's. She was always a singular woman, with a reason for all that she did, which I, in my old-fashioned way, do not think good in a woman. She disliked my wife. I could see that through her affectionate ways. I do not know why. Men cannot understand these things. Rosa was very beautiful."

Eve, who was watching his face, gave a little nod—a mental nod, as it were, for her own edification. It is possible that she, being a woman, understood.

"Finally they came to stay a few days—you know the Spanish hospitality. She forced it on us against our will. I was particularly averse to it because of—Rosa. I wanted to be quietly at Lloseta. We intended to live almost entirely in Majorca. We wanted our children to be Majorcans, and especially a son. The Harringtons stayed longer than we invited them for. They were well- bred adventurers. I have met many such in English country houses— people who shoot, and fish, and hunt at the expense of others. It suited them to stay at Lloseta, and they did so. They were people who got the best of everything by asking for it—by looking upon it in a well-bred way as their right. I did not mind that, but I wanted them to go, on account of Rosa. Also I disliked the woman's manner towards myself; it altered when Rosa was not there, you understand. We have a word for it in Spain, but I will not say it because the woman is dead."

There was a rasping sound as he drew his first and second fingers across his closely shaven chin. It is a singular thing that cynics usually reserve their keenest shafts for women.

"At last I informed Rosa that they must be told to go, and Rosa was very angry. It was her pride—the pride of a new-fledged hostess, of a young matron. She was Spanish, and hot tempered. My inhospitality was terrible to her, and she spoke sharply. I was quicker to feel and to act then than I am now. I answered her. I would not give way, thinking, as I was, of the son we hoped for. It was nothing, but we raised our voices. In the heat of the argument I lifted my hand. Rosa thought that I was going to strike her—a strange mistake. She stepped back and fell. You know our marble floors. She struck her temple against the floor, and she lay quite still. I heard a sound, and turning, saw Mrs. Harrington in the doorway. She had been listening; she had seen everything. Rosa never recovered consciousness; she died. It was terribly easy for her to die. It was equally hard for me to continue living. Mrs. Harrington helped me in my great sorrow to a certain extent, but she would not help me by going away. Then, as soon as Rosa was buried, she told me that unless I gave her money she would tell all Spain that I had murdered my wife. At first I did not understand. I did not know that God had created women such as this. But she made her meaning quite clear. Indeed to do this thoroughly, she hinted to the neighbours that she knew more than she had disclosed. All Majorca would turn its back upon me—all except Challoner. I paid the woman. I have paid her ever since, and I do not regret it. What else could I do? After many generations of honour and uprightness I could not let the name of Lloseta fall into the hands of a low woman such as Mrs. Harrington. I had to pay heavily, but it was still cheap. I saved the name. No breath of dishonour has reached the name of De Lloseta de Mallorca. I got her out of Majorca, and my old friend Challoner set himself the task of silencing the gossips. But I found that I had to leave Lloseta—for the name's sake I quitted my home."

He spread out his hands with a patient gesture of resignation.

"Such has been my life," he went on. "It has been spent in preserving the name unspotted, in paying Mrs. Harrington, and in praying the good God to make her life unhappy and short. In His greater wisdom He prolonged her life, but it was never a happy one, for God is just. I am the last of the Llosetas. The name will die, but it has lived for six hundred years, and it dies as it lived— unspotted—one of the great names of the world."

He broke off with a little laugh.

"Spanish pride," he said. "I must beg your indulgence. My life you know. It has not been a happy one. I have never forgotten Rosa; I have never even tried. I have had several objects however in life; it has not been uninteresting. One of the chief of these objects has been to repay to a minute extent the true friendship of my dear Challoner. He was a friend in need. He taught me to look upon the English as the finest race of men on this planet. I may be wrong, but I shall adhere to my opinion. In my small way I attempted to repay in part to Challoner's daughter all that I owed to him; but I only ran against a pride as strong, as sensitive as my own. My child, you did quite right!"

He turned to Eve, smiling his patient smile.

"And now," he went on, "I shall have my way after all."

He laid his hand on Henry Cyprian, who was conscientiously putting the Valley of Repose to its best use.

"After all, this little caballero was born at D'Erraha. D'Erraha is his; is it not so?"

And Eve, giving up her pride to him—casting it down before his loftier pride—came round to his chair, and bending over, kissed him silently.

THE END