skirts and winds her hair about the top of her curious young head,
things begin to jar.  The men are not what she dreamed them to be,
there never was such a person as Prince Charming; and the women embrace
her--if she is pretty and graceful--with arms bristling with needles of
envy and malice; and the rosal tint that she saw in the approach is
nothing more or less than jaundice; and, one day disheartened and
bewildered, she learns that the world is only a jumble of futile,
ill-made things.  The admiral had weeded out most of these illusions at
the start.

"So much for suppositions and analysis," panted Fitzgerald, reknotting
his silk tie.  "As for me, I go to the Arctic; cold, but safe.  I have
never fallen in love.  I have enjoyed the society of many women, and to
some I've been silly enough to write, but I have never been maudlin.
I'm no fool.  This is the place where it would be most likely to
happen.  Let us beat an orderly retreat.  What the devil ails my
fingers to-night?  M'h!  There; will you stay tied as I want you?  She
has traveled, she has studied, she is at home with grand dukes in Nice,
and scribblers in a country village.  She is wise without being solemn.
She has courage, too, or I should not be here on a mere fluke.  Now, my
boy, you have given yourself due notice.  Take care!"

He slipped his coat over his shoulders--and passably sturdy ones they
were--and took a final look into the glass.  Not for vanity's sake;
sometimes a man's tie will show above the collar of his coat.

"Hm!  I'll wager the trout are rising about this time."  He imitated a
cast which was supposed to land neatly in the corner.  "Ha!  Struck you
that time, you beauty!"  All of which proved to himself, conclusively,
that he was in normal condition.  "I should get a wire to-morrow about
Breitmann.  I hate to do anything that looks underhand, but he puzzles
me.  There was something about the chimney to-day; I don't know what.
This is no place for him--nor for me, either," was the shrewd
supplement.

There was still some time before dinner, so he walked about, with his
hands in his pockets, and viewed the four walls of his room.  He
examined the paints and admired the collection of blood-thirsty old
weapons over the mantel, but with the indirect interest of a man who is
thinking of other things.  At the end, he paused before the window,
which, like the one in Breitmann's room, afforded a clear outlook to
the open waters.  Night was already mistress of the sea; and below, the
village lights twinkled from various points.

Laura tried on three gowns, to the very great surprise of her maid.
Usually her mistress told her in the morning what to lay out for
dinner.  Here there were two fine-looking young men about, and yet she
was for selecting the simplest gown of the three.  The little French
maid did not understand the reason, nor at that moment could her
mistress have readily explained.  It was easy to dress for the critical
eyes of rich young men, officers, gentlemen with titles; all that was
required was a fresh Parisian model, some jewels, and a bundle of
orchids or expensive roses.  But these two men belonged to a class she
knew little of; gentlemen adventurers, who had been in strange,
unfrequented places, who had helped to make history, who received
decorations, and never wore them, who remained to the world at large
obscure and unknown.

So, with that keen insight which is a part of a well-bred, intelligent
woman--and also rather inexplicable to the male understanding--she
chose the simplest gown.  She was hazily conscious that they would
notice this dress, whereas the gleaming satin would have passed as a
matter of fact.  Round her graceful throat she placed an Indian
turquoise necklace; nothing in her hair, nothing on her fingers.  She
went down-stairs perfectly content.

As she came into the hall, she heard soft music.  Some one was in the
music-room, which was just off the library.  She stopped to listen.
Chopin, with light touch and tender feeling.  Which of the two
wanderers was it?  Quietly, she moved along to the door.  Breitmann;
she rather expected to find him.  Nearly all educated Germans played.
The music stopped for a moment, then resumed.  Another melody followed,
a melody she had heard from one end of France to the other.  She
frowned, not with displeasure, but with puzzlement.  For what purpose
did a soldier of the German empire play the battle hymn of the French
republic?  _The Marseillaise_?  She entered the music-room, and the low
but vibrant chords ceased instantly.  Breitmann had been playing these
melodies standing.  He turned quickly.

"I beg your pardon," he said, but perfectly free from embarrassment.

"I am very fond of music myself.  Please play whenever the mood comes
to you.  _The Marseillaise_--"

"Ah!" he interrupted, laughing.  "There was a bit of traitor in my
fingers just then.  But music should have no country; it should be
universal."

"Perhaps, generally speaking; but every land should have an anthem of
its own.  The greatest composition of Beethoven or Wagner will never
touch the heart as the ripple of a battle song."

And when Fitzgerald joined them they were seriously discussing Wagner
and his ill-treatment in Munich, and of the mad king of Bavaria.

As she had planned, both men noticed the simplicity of her dress.

"It is because she doesn't care," thought Breitmann.

"It is because she knows we don't care," thought Fitzgerald.  And he
was nearer the truth than Breitmann.

The dinner was pleasant, and there was much talk of travel.  The
admiral had touched nearly every port, Fitzgerald had been round three
times, and Breitmann four.  The girl experienced a sense of elation as
she listened.  She knew most of her father's stories, but to-night he
drew upon a half-forgotten store.  Without embellishment, as if they
were ordinary, every-day affairs, they exchanged tales of adventure in
strange island wildernesses; and there were lion hunts and man hunts
and fierce battles on land and sea.  Never had any story-book opened a
like world.  She felt a longing for the Himalayas, the Indian jungles,
the low-lying islands of the South Pacific.

So far as the admiral was concerned, he was very well pleased with the
new secretary.

Fitzgerald was not asleep.  He had an idea, and he smoked his yellow
African gourd pipe till this same idea shaped itself into the form of a
resolve.  He laid the pipe on the mantel, turned over the logs--for the
nights were yet chill, and a fire was a comfort--and raised a window.
He would like to hear some of that tapping in the chimney.  He was
fully dressed, excepting that he had exchanged shoes for slippers.

He went out into the corridor.  There was no light under Breitmann's
door.  So much the better; he was asleep.  Fitzgerald crept down the
stairs with the caution of a hunter who is trailing new game.  As he
arrived at the turn of the first landing, he hesitated.  He could hear
the old clock striking off the seconds in the lower hall.  He cupped
his ear.  By George!  Joining the sharp monotony of the clock was
another sound, softer, intermittent.  He was certain that it came from
the library.  That door was never closed.  Click-click!  Click-click!
The mystery was close at hand.

He moved forward.  He wanted to get as close as possible to the
fireplace.  He peered in.  The fire was all but dead; only the corner
of a log glowed dully.  Suddenly, the glow died, only to reappear,
unchanged.  This phenomena could be due to one thing, a passing of
something opaque.  Fitzgerald had often seen this in camps, when some
one's legs passed between him and the fire.  Some one else was in the
room.  With a light bound, he leaped forward, to find himself locked in
a pair of arms no less vigorous than his own.

And even in that lively moment he remembered that the sound in the
chimney went on!

CHAPTER X

THE GHOST OF AN OLD RÉGIME

It was a quick, silent struggle.  The intruder wore no shoes.  It would
be a test of endurance.  Fitzgerald recalled some tricks he had learned
in Japan; but even as he stretched out his arm to perform one, the arm
was caught by the wrist, while a second hand passed under his elbow.

"Don't!" he gasped lowly.  "I'll give in."  His arm would have snapped
if he hadn't spoken.

A muttered oath in German.  "Fitzgerald?" came the query, in a whisper.

"Yes.  For God's sake, is this you, Breitmann?"

"Sh!  Not so loud!  What are you doing here?"

"And you?"

"Listen!  It has stopped.  He has heard our scuffling."

"It seems, then, that we are both here for the same purpose?" said
Fitzgerald, pulling down his cuffs, and running his fingers round his
collar.

"Yes.  You came too late or too soon."  Breitmann stooped, and ran his
hands over the rug.

The other saw him but dimly.  "What's the matter?"

"I have lost one of my studs," with the frugal spirit of his mother's
forebears.  "You are stronger than I thought."

"Much obliged."

"It's a good thing you did not get that hold first.  You'd have broken
my arm."

"Wouldn't have given in, eh?  I simply cried quits in order to start
over again.  There's no fair fighting in the dark, you know."

"Well, we have frightened him away.  It is too bad."

"What have you on your feet?"

"Felt slippers."

"Are you afraid of the cold?"

A laugh.  "Not I!"

"Come with me."

"Where?"

"First to the cellar.  Remember that hot-air box from the furnace, that
backs the chimney, way up?"

"I looked only at the bricks."

"We'll go and have a look at that box.  It just occurred to me that
there is a cellar window within two feet of that box."

"Let us hurry.  Can you find the way?"

"I can try."

"But lights?"

Fitzgerald exhibited his electric pocket lamp.  "This will do."

"You Americans!"

After some mistakes they found their way to the cellar.  The window was
closed, but not locked, and resting against the wall was a plank.  It
leaned obliquely, as if left in a hurry.  Fitzgerald took it up, and
bridged between the box and the window ledge.  Breitmann gave him a leg
up, and in another moment he was examining the brick wall of the great
chimney under a circular white patch of light.  A dozen rows of bricks
had been cleverly loosened.  There were also evidences of chalk marks,
something on the order of a diagram; but it was rather uncertain, as it
had been redrawn four or five times.  The man hadn't been sure of his
ground.

"Can you see?" asked Fitzgerald.

"Yes."  Only Breitmann himself knew what wild rage lay back of that
monosyllable.  He was sure now; that diagram brushed away any lingering
doubt.  The lock had been trifled with, but the man who had done the
work had not been sure of his dimensions.

"Clever piece of work.  Took away the mortar in his pockets; no sign of
it here.  The admiral had better send for his bricklayer, for more
reasons than one.  There'll be a defective flue presently.  Now, what
the devil is the duffer expecting to find?" Fitzgerald coolly turned
the light full into the other's face.

"It is beyond me," with equal coolness; "unless there's a pirate's
treasure behind there."  The eyes blinked a little, which was but
natural.

"Pirate's treasure, you say?" Fitzgerald laughed.  "That _would_ be a
joke, eh?"

"What now?"  For Breitmann thought it best to leave the initiative with
his friend.

"A little run out to the stables," recalling to mind the rumor of the
night before.

"The stables?"

"Why, surely.  The fellow never got in here without some local
assistance, and I am rather certain that this comes from the stables.
Besides, no one will be expecting us."  He came down agilely.

Breitmann nodded approvingly at the ease with which the other made the
descent.  "It would be wiser to leave the cellar by the window," he
suggested.

"My idea, too.  We'll make a step out of this board.  The stars are
bright enough."  Fitzgerald climbed out first, and then gave a hand to
Breitmann.

"I understood there was a burglar alarm in the house."

"Yes; but this very window, being open, probably breaks the circuit.
All cleverly planned.  But I'm crazy to learn what he is looking for.
Double your coat over your white shirt."

Breitmann was already proceeding with this task.  A dog-trot brought
them into the roadway, but they kept to the grass.  They were within a
yard of the stable doors when a hound began bellowing.  Breitmann
smothered a laugh and Fitzgerald a curse.

"The quicker we get back to the cellar the better," was the former's
observation.

And they returned at a clip, scrambling into the cellar as quickly and
silently as they could, and made for the upper floors.

"Come into my room," said Fitzgerald; "it's only midnight."

Breitmann agreed.  If he had any reluctance, he did not show it.
Fitzgerald produced cigars.

"Do my clothes look anything like yours?" asked Breitmann dryly,
striking a match.

"Possibly."

They looked themselves over for any real damage.  There were no rents,
but there were cobwebs on the wool and streaks of coal dust on the
linen.

"We shall have to send our clothes to the village tailor.  The
admiral's valet might think it odd."

"Where do you suppose he comes from?"

"I don't care where.  What's he after, to take all this trouble?
Something big, I'll warrant."

And then, for a time, they smoked like Turks, in silence.

"By George, it's a good joke; you and I trying to choke each other,
while the real burglar makes off."

"It has some droll sides."

"And you all but broke my arm."

Breitmann chuckled.  "You were making the same move.  I was quicker,
that was all."

Another pause.

"The admiral has seen some odd corners.  Think of seeing, at close
range, the Japanese-Chinese naval fight!"

"He tells a story well."

"And the daughter is a thoroughbred."

"Yes," non-committally.

"By the way, I'm going to the Pole in June or August."

"The Italian expedition?"

"Yes."

"That ought to make fine copy.  You will not mind if I turn in?  A bit
sleepy."

"Not at all.  Shall we tell the admiral?"

"The first thing in the morning.  Good night."

Fitzgerald finished his cigar, and went to bed also.  "Interesting old
place," wadding a pillow under his ear.  "More interesting to-morrow."

Some time earlier, the individual who was the cause of this nocturnal
exploit hurried down the hill, nursing a pair of skinned palms, and
laughing gently to himself.

"Checkmate!  I shall try the other way."

On the morrow, Fitzgerald recounted the adventure in a semi-humorous
fashion, making a brisk melodrama out of it, to the quiet amusement of
his small audience.

"I shall send for the mason this morning," said the admiral.  "I've
been dreaming of _The Black Cat_ and all sorts of horrible things.  I
hate like sixty to spoil the old chimney, but we can't have this going
on.  We'll have it down at once.  A fire these days is only a nice
touch to the mahogany."

"But you must tell him to put back every brick in its place," said
Laura.  "I could not bear to have anything happen to that chimney.  All
the same, I am glad the matter is going to be cleared up.  It has been
nerve-racking; and I have been all alone, waiting for I know not what."

"You haven't been afraid?" said Fitzgerald.

"I'm not sure that I haven't."  She sighed.

"Nonsense!" cried the admiral.

"I am not afraid of anything I can see; but I do not like the dark; I
do not like mysteries."

"You're the bravest girl I know, Laura," her father declared.  "Now,
Mr. Breitmann, if you don't mind."

"Shall we begin at once, sir?"

"You will copy some of my notes, to begin with.  Any time you're in
doubt over a word, speak to me.  There will not be much outside of
manuscript work.  Most of my mail is sorted at my bankers, and only
important letters forwarded.  There may be a social note occasionally.
Do you read and write English as well as you speak it?"

"Oh, yes."

Laura invited Fitzgerald to the tennis court.

"In these shoes?" he protested.

"They will not matter; it is a cement court."

"But I shan't look the game.  Tennis without flannels is like duck
without apples."

"Bother!  We'll play till the mason comes up.  And mind your game.
I've been runner-up in a dozen tournaments."

And he soon found that she had not overrated her skill.  She served
strongly, volleyed beautifully, and darted across the court with a
fleetness and a surety both delightful to observe.  So interested were
they in the battle that they forgot all about the mason, till the
butler came out, and announced that the desecration had begun.

In fact the broad marble top was on the floor, and the room full of
impalpable dust.  The admiral and the secretary were gravely stacking
the bricks, one by one, as they came out.

"Found anything?" asked the girl breathlessly.

"Not yet; but Mr. Donovan here has just discovered a hollow space above
the mantel line."

The admiral sneezed.

Mr. Donovan, in his usual free and happy way, drew out two bricks, and
dropped them on the polished floor.

"There's your holler, sir," he said, dusting his hands.

Unbidden, Breitmann pushed his hand into the cavity.  His arm went down
to the elbow, and he was forced to stand on tiptoe.  He was pale when
he withdrew his arm, but in his hand was a square metal case, about the
size and shape of a cigar box.

"By cracky!  What's the matter, Mr. Breitmann?"  The admiral stepped
forward solicitously.

Breitmann swayed, and fell against the side of the fireplace.  "It is
nothing; lost my balance for a moment.  Will you open it, sir?"

"Lost his balance?" muttered Fitzgerald.  "He looks groggy.  Why?"

This was not a time for speculation.  All rushed after the admiral, who
laid the case on his desk, and took out his keys.  None of them would
turn in the ancient lock.  With an impatient gesture, which escaped the
others, the secretary seized Mr. Donovan's hammer, inserted the claw
between the lock and the catch, and gave a powerful wrench.  The lid
fell back, crooked and scarred.

The admiral put on his Mandarin spectacles.  With his hands behind his
back, he bent and critically examined the contents.  Then, very
carefully, he extracted a packet of papers, yellow and old, bound with
heavy cording.  Beneath this packet was a medal of the Legion of Honor,
some rose leaves, and a small glove.

"Know what I think?" said the admiral, stilling the shake in his voice.
"This belonged to that mysterious Frenchman who lived here eighty years
ago.  I'll wager that medal cost some blood.  By cracky, what a find!"

"And the poor little glove and the rose leaves!" murmured the girl, in
pity.  "It seems like a crime to disturb them."

"We shan't, my child.  Our midnight friend wasn't digging yonder for
faded keepsakes.  These papers are the things."  The admiral cut the
string, and opened one of the documents.  "H'm!  Written in French.  So
is this," looking at another, "and this.  Here, Laura, cast your eye
over these, and tell us why some one was hunting for them."

Fitzgerald eyed Breitmann thoughtfully.  The whole countenance of the
man had changed.  Indeed, it resembled another face he had seen
somewhere; and it grew in his mind, slowly but surely, as dawn grows,
that Breitmann was not wholly ignorant in this affair.  He had not
known who had been working at night; but that dizziness of the moment
gone, the haste in opening the case, the eagerness of the search last
night; all these, to Fitzgerald's mind, pointed to one thing: Breitmann
knew.

"I shall watch him."

Laura read the documents to herself first.  Here and there was a word
which confused her; but she gathered the full sense of the remarkable
story.  Her eyes shone like winter stars.

"Father!" she cried, dropping the papers, and spreading out her arms.
"Father, it's the greatest thing in the world.  A treasure!"

"What's that, Laura?" straining his ears.

"A treasure, hidden by the soldiers of Napoleon; put together, franc by
franc, in the hope of some day rescuing the emperor from St. Helena.
It is romance!  A real treasure of two millions of francs!" clapping
her hands.

"Where?"  It was Breitmann who spoke.  His voice was not clear.

"Corsica!"

"Corsica!"  The admiral laughed like a child.  Right under his very
nose all these years, and he cruising all over the chart!  "Laura,
dear, there's no reason in the world why we shouldn't take the yacht
and go and dig up this pretty sum."

"No reason in the world!"  But the secretary did not pronounce these
words aloud.

"A telegram for you, sir," said the butler, handing the yellow envelope
to Fitzgerald.

"Will you pardon me?" he said drawing off to a window.

"Go ahead," said the admiral, fingering the medal of the Legion of
Honor.

Fitzgerald read:

"Have made inquiries.  Your man never applied to any of the
metropolitan dailies.  Few ever heard of him."

He jammed the message into a pocket, and returned to the group about
the case.  Where should he begin?  Breitmann had lied.

CHAPTER XI

PREPARATIONS AND COGITATIONS

The story itself was brief enough, but there was plenty of husk to the
grain.  The old expatriate was querulous, long-winded, not niggard with
his ink when he cursed the English and damned the Prussians; and he
obtained much gratification in jabbing his quill-bodkin into what he
termed the sniveling nobility of the old regime.  Dog of dogs! was he
not himself noble?  Had not his parents and his brothers gone to the
guillotine with the rest of them?  But he, thank God, had no wooden
mind; he could look progress and change in the face and follow their
bent.  And now, all the crimes and heroisms of the Revolution, all the
glorious pageantry of the empire, had come to nothing.  A Bourbon,
thick-skulled, sordid, worn-out, again sat upon the throne, while the
Great Man languished on a rock in the Atlantic.  Fools that they had
been, not to have hidden the little king of Rome as against this very
dog!  It was pitiful.  He never saw a shower in June that he did not
hail curses upon it.  To have lost Waterloo for a bucketful of water!
Thousand thunders! could he ever forget that terrible race back to
Paris?  Could he ever forget the shame of it?  Grouchy for a fool and
Blücher for a blundering ass.  _Eh bien_; they would soon tumble the
Bourbons into oblivion again.

A rambling desultory tale.  And there were reminiscences of such and
such a great lady's _salon_; the flight from Moscow; the day of the
Bastille; the poor fool of a Louis who donned a red-bonnet and wore the
tricolor; some new opera dances; the flight of his cowardly cousins to
Austria; Austerlitz and Jena; the mad dream in Egypt; the very day when
the Great Man pulled a crown out of his saddle-bag and made himself an
emperor.  Just a little corporal from Corsica; think of it!  And so on;
all jumbled but keyed with tremendous interest to the listeners and to
Laura herself.  It was the golden age of opportunity, of reward, of
sudden generals and princes and dukes.  All gone, nothing left but a
few battle-flags; England no longer shaking in her boots, and the rest
of them dividing the spoils!  No!  There were some left, and in their
hands lay the splendid enterprise.

Quietly they had pieced together this sum and that, till there was now
stored away two-million francs.  Two or three frigates and a corvette
or two; then the work would go forward.  Only a little while to wait,
and then they would bring their beloved chief back to France and to his
own again.  Had he not written: "Come for me, _mon brave_.  They say
they have orders to shoot me.  Come; better carry my corpse away than
that I should rot here for years to come."  They would come.  But this
year went by and another; one by one the Old Guard died off, smaller
and smaller had drawn the circle.  The vile rock called St. Helena
still remained impregnable.  On a certain day they came to tell him
that the emperor was no more.  Soon he was all alone but one; these
brave soldiers who had planned with him were no more.  An alien, an
outcast, he too longed for night.  And what should he do with it, this
vast treasure, every franc of which meant sacrifice and unselfishness,
bravery and loyalty?  Let the gold rot.  He would bury all knowledge of
it in yonder chimney, confident that no one would ever find the
treasure, since he alone possessed the key to it, having buried it
himself.  So passed the greatest Caesar of them all, the most brilliant
empire, the bravest army.  Ah! had the king of Rome lived!  Had there
been some direct Napoleonic blood to take up the work!  Vain dreams!
The Great Man's brothers had been knaves and fools.

"And so to-night," the narrator ended, "I bury the casket in the
chimney; within it, my hopes and few trinkets of the past of which I am
an integral part.  Good-by, little glove; good-by, brave old medal!  I
am sending a drawing of the chimney to the good Abbe le Fanu.  He will
outlive me.  He lives on forty-centime the day; treasures mean nothing
to him; his cry, his eternal cry, is always of the People.  He will
probably tear it up.  The brig will never come again.  So best.  Death
will come soon.  And I shall die unknown, unloved, forgotten.  _Bonne
nuit_!"

Mr. Donovan alone remained in normal state of mind.  'Twas all
faradiddle, this talk of finding treasures.  The old Frenchman had been
only half-baked.  He dumped his tools into his bag, and, with the
wisdom of his kind, departed.  There would be another job to-morrow,
putting the bricks back.

The others, however, were for the time but children, and like children
they all talked at once; and there was laughter and thumping of fists
and clapping of hands.  The admiral had a new plan every five minutes.
He would do this, or he would do that; and Fitzgerald would shake his
head, or Breitmann would point out the feasibility of the plan.  Above
all, he urged, there must be no publicity (with a flash toward
Fitzgerald); the world must know nothing till the treasure was in their
hands.  Otherwise, there would surely be piracy on the high-seas.  Two
million francs was a prize, even in these days.  There were plenty of
men and plenty of tramp ships.  Even when they found the gold, secrecy
would be best.  There might be some difficulty with France.  Close
lips, then, till they returned to America; after that Mr. Fitzgerald
would become famous as the teller of the exploit.

"I confess that, for all my excitement," said Fitzgerald, "I am
somewhat skeptical.  Still, your suggestion, Mr. Breitmann, is good."

"Do you mean to say you doubt the existence of the treasure?" cried the
admiral, something impatient.

"Oh, no doubt it once existed.  But seventy-five or eighty years!
There were others besides this refugee Frenchman.  Who knows into what
hands similar documents may have fallen?"

"And the unknown man who worked in the chimney?" put in the girl
quietly.

"That simply proves what I say.  He knows that this treasure once
existed, but not where.  Now, it is perfectly logical that some other
man, years ago, might have discovered the same key as we have.  He may
have got away with it.  The man might have plausibly declared that he
had made the money somewhere.  The sum is not so large as to create any
wide comment."

"Ah, my boy, your father had more enthusiasm than that."  The admiral
looked reproachful.

"My dear admiral," and Fitzgerald laughed in that light-hearted way of
his, "I would go into the heart of China on a treasure hunt, for the
mere fun of it.  Enthusiasm?  Nothing would gratify me more than to
strike a shovel into the spot where this treasure, this pot of gold, is
supposed to lie.  It will be great sport; nothing like it.  I was
merely supposing.  I have never heard of, or come into contact with, a
man who has found a hidden treasure.  I am putting up these doubts
because we are never sure of anything.  Why, Mr. Breitmann knows; isn't
it more fun to find a dollar in an old suit of clothes than to know you
have ten in the suit you are wearing?  It's not how much, it's the
finding that gives the pleasure."

"That is true," echoed Breitmann generously.  He fingered the papers
with a touch that was almost a caress.  "A pity that you will go to the
Arctic instead."

"I am not quite sure that I shall go," replied Fitzgerald.  That this
man had deliberately lied to him rendered him indecisive.  For the
present he could not do or say anything, but he had a great desire to
be on hand to watch.

"You are not your father's son if you refuse to go with us;" and the
Admiral sent home this charge with fist against palm.

"'Pieces of eight!  Pieces of eight!'" parroted the girl drolly.  "You
will go, Mr. Fitzgerald."

"Do you really want me to?" cleverly putting the decision with her.

"Yes."  There was no coquetry in voice or eye.

"When do you expect to go?"  Fitzgerald put this question to the
admiral.

"As soon as we can coal up and provision.  Laura, I've just got to
smoke.  Will you gentlemen join me?"  The two young men declined.  "We
can go straight to Funchal in the Madieras and re-coal.  With the
club-ensign up nobody will be asking questions.  We can telegraph the
_Herald_ whenever we touch a port.  Just a pleasure-cruise."  The
admiral fingered the Legion of Honor.  "And here was Alladin's Lamp
hanging up in my chimney!"  He broke in laughter.  "By cracky! that man
Donovan knows his business.  He's gone without putting back the bricks.
He has mulcted me for two days' work."

"But crossing in the yacht," hesitated Fitzgerald.  He wished to sound
this man Breitmann.  If he suggested obstacles and difficulties it
would be a confirmation of the telegram and his own singular doubts.

"It is likely to be a rough passage," said Breitmann experimentally.

"He doesn't want me to go."  Fitzgerald stroked his chin slyly.

"We have crossed the Atlantic twice in the yacht," Laura affirmed with
a bit of pride; "once in March too, and a heavy sea half the way."

"Enter me as cabin-boy or supercargo," said Fitzgerald.  "If you don't
you'll find a stowaway before two days out."

"That's the spirit."  The admiral drew strongly on his cigar.  He had
really never been so excited since his first sea-engagement.  "And it
comes in so pat, Laura.  We were going away in a month anyway.  Now we
can notify the guests that we've cut down the time two weeks.  I tell
you what it is, this will be the greatest cruise I ever laid a course
to."

"Guests?" murmured Fitzgerald, unconsciously poaching on Breitmann's
thought.

"Yes.  But they shall know nothing till we land in Corsica.  And in a
day or two this fellow would have laid hands on these things and we'd
never been any the wiser."

"And may we not expect more of him?" said Breitmann.

"Small good it will do him."

"Corsica," repeated the girl dreamily.

"Ay, Napoleon.  The Corsican Brothers' daggers and vendetta, the
restless island!  It is full of interest.  I have been there."
Breitmann smiled pleasantly at the girl, but his thought was unsmiling.
Versed as he was in reading at a glance expression, whether it lay in
the eyes, in the lips, or the hands, he realized with chagrin that he
had made a misstep somewhere.  For some reason he would have given much
to know, Fitzgerald was covertly watching him.

"You have been there, too, have you not, Mr. Fitzgerald?" asked Laura.

"Oh, yes; but never north of Ajaccio."

"Laura, what a finishing touch this will give to my book."  For the
admiral was compiling a volume of treasures found, lost and still being
hunted.  "All I can say is, that I am really sorry that the money
wasn't used for the purpose intended."

"I do not agree there," said Fitzgerald.

"And why not?" asked Breitmann.

"France is better off as she is.  She has had all the empires and
monarchies she cares for.  Wonderful country!  See how she has lived in
spite of them all.  There will never be another kingdom in France, at
least not in our generation.  There's a Napoleon in Belgium and a
Bourbon in England; the one drills mediocre soldiers and the other
shoots grouse.  They will never go any further."

The secretary spread his fingers and shrugged.  "If there was only a
direct descendant of Napoleon!"

"Well, there isn't," retorted Fitzgerald, dismissing the subject into
limbo.  "And much good it would do if there was."

"This treasure would rightly be his," insisted Breitmann.

"It was put together to bring Napoleon back.  There is no Napoleon to
bring back."

"In other words, the money belongs to the finder?"

"Exactly."

"Findings is keepings," the admiral determined.  "That's Captain
Flanagan's rule."

The girl could bring together no reasons for the mind inclining to the
thought that between the two young men there had risen an antagonism of
some sort, nothing serious but still armed with spikes of light in the
eyes and a semi-truculent angle to the chin.  Fitzgerald was also aware
of this apparency, and it annoyed him.  Still, sometimes instinct
guides more surely than logic.  After all, he and Breitmann were only
casual acquaintances.  There had never been any real basis for
friendship; and the possibility of this had been rendered nil by the
telegram.  One can not make a friend of a man who has lied gratuitously.

"Now, Mr. Breitmann," interposed the admiral pacifically, for he was
too keen a sailor not to have noted the chill in the air, "suppose we
send off those letters?  Here, I'll write the names and addresses, and
you can finish them up by yourself.  Please call up Captain Flanagan at
Swan's Hotel and tell him to report this afternoon."  The admiral
scribbled out the names of his guests, gathered up the precious
documents, and put them into his pocket.  "Come along now, my children;
we'll take the air in the garden and picture the Frenchman's brig
rocking in the harbor."

"It is all very good of you," said Fitzgerald, as the trio eyed the
yacht from the terrace.

"Nonsense!  The thing remains that all these years you ignored us."

"I have been, and still am, confoundedly poor.  There is a little; I
suppose I could get along in a hut in some country village; but the
wandering life has spoiled me for that."

"Fake pride," rebuked the girl.

"I suppose it is."

"Your father had none.  Long after the smash he'd hunt me up for a
week's fishing.  Isn't she a beauty?" pointing to the yacht.

"She is," the young man agreed, with his admiration leveled at the
lovely profile of the girl.

"Let me see," began the admiral; "there will be Mr. and Mrs. Coldfield,
first-class sailors, both of them.  What's the name of that singer who
is with them?"

"Hildegarde von Mitter."

"Of the Royal Opera in Munich?" asked Fitzgerald.

"Yes.  Have you met her?  Isn't she lovely?"

"I have only heard of her."

"And Arthur Cathewe," concluded the admiral.

"Cathewe?  That will be fine," Fitzgerald agreed aloud.  But in his
heart he swore he would never forgive Arthur for this trick.  And he
knew all the time!  "He's the best friend I have.  A great hunter, with
a reputation which reaches from the Carpathians to the Himalayas, from
Abyssinia to the Congo."

"He is charming and amusing.  Only, he is very shy."

At four that afternoon Captain Flanagan presented his respects.  The
admiral was fond of the old fellow, a friendship formed in the blur of
battle-smoke.  He had often been criticized for officering his yacht
with such a gruff, rather illiterate man, when gentlemen were to be had
for the asking.  But Flanagan was a splendid seaman, and the admiral
would not have exchanged him for the smartest English naval-reserve
afloat.  There was never a bend in Flanagan's back; royalty and
commonalty were all the same to him.  And those who came to criticize
generally remained to admire; for Flanagan was the kind of sailor fast
disappearing from the waters, a man who had learned his seamanship
before the mast.

"Captain, how long will it take us to reach Funchal in the Madieras?"

"Well, Commodore, give us a decent sea an' we can make 'er in fourteen
days.  But I thought we wus goin' t' th' Banks, sir?"

"Changed my plans.  We'll put out in twelve days.  Everything
shipshape?"

"Up to the buntin', sir, and down to her keel.  I sh'd say about
six-hundred tons; an' mebbe twelve days instead of fourteen.  An'
what'll be our course after Madeery, sir?"

"Ajaccio, Corsica."

"Yessir."

If the admiral had said the Antarctic, Flanagan would never have batted
an eye.

"You have spoken the crew?"

"Yessir; deep-sea men, too, sir.  Halloran 'll have th' injins as us'l,
sir.  Shall I run 'er up t' N' York fer provisions?  I got your list."

"Triple the order.  I'll take care of the wine and tobacco."

"All right, sir."

"That will be all.  Have a cigar."

"Thank you, sir.  What's the trouble?" extending a pudgy hand toward
the chimney.

"I'll tell you all about that later.  Send up that man Donovan again."
It occurred to the admiral that it would not be a bad plan to cover Mr.
Donovan's palm.  They had forgotten all about him.  He had overheard.

Very carefully the captain put away the cigar and journeyed back to the
village.  He regretted Corsica.  He hated Dagos, and Corsica was Dago;
thieves and cut-throats, all of them.

This long time Breitmann had despatched his letters and gone to his
room, where he remained till dinner.  He was a servant in the house.
He must not forget that.  He had been worse things than this, and still
he had not forgotten.  He had felt the blush of shame, yet he had
remembered, and white anger had embossed the dull scars; it was
impossible that he should forget.

He had grown accustomed, even in this short time, to the window
overlooking the sea, and he leaned that late afternoon with his arms
resting on the part where the two frames joined and locked.  The sea
was blue and gentle breasted.  Flocks of gulls circled the little
harbor and land-birds ventured daringly forth.

With what infinite care and patience had he gained this place!  What
struggles had ensued!  Like one of yonder birds he had been blown
about, but even with his eyes hunting for this resting.  He had found
it and about lost it.  A day or so later!  He had come to rob, to lie,
to pillage, any method to gain his end; and fate had led him over this
threshold without dishonor, ironically.  Even for that, thank God!

Dimly he heard Fitzgerald whistling in his room across.  The sound
entered his ear, but not his trend of thought.  God in Heaven what a
small place this earth was!  In his hand, tightly clutched, was a ball
of paper, damp from the sweat of his palm.  He had gnawed it, he had
pressed it in despair.  Cathewe was a man, and he was not afraid of any
man living.  Besides, men rarely became tellers of tales.  But the
woman: Hildegarde von Mitter!  How to meet her, how to look into her
great eyes, how to hear the sound of her voice!

He flung the ball of paper into the corner.  She could break him as one
breaks a dry and brittle reed.

CHAPTER XII

M. FERRAUD INTRODUCES HIMSELF.

"Yessir, Mr. Donovan," said Captain Flanagan, his peg-leg crossed and
one hand abstractedly polishing the brass ferrule; "Yessir, the
question is, what did y' hear?"

Mr. Donovan caressed his beer-glass and reflected.  The two were seated
in the office of Swan's Hotel.  "Well, I took them bricks out an' it
seems that loony ol' Frenchman our grandpas use to blow about had hid a
box in th' chimbley."

"A box in the chimbley.  An' what was in the box?"

Mr. Donovan considered again.  "I'll tell you the truth, Cap'n.  It wus
a lot of rigermarole about a treasure.  I wanted t' laugh.  Your
commodore's a hoodoo on pirates an' treasures, an' he ain't found
either yet."

"No jokin'; keep a clear course."

"No harm.  Th' admiral's all right, and don't you forget it.  As I wus
sayin', they finds this 'ere box.  The dockeyments wus in French, but
th' daughter read 'em off sumpin wonderful.  You've heard of Napoleon?"

"Yes; I recollects the name," replied the captain, with quiet ridicule.

"Well, this business pertained t' him.  Seems some o' his friends got
money t'gether t' rescue him from some island or other."

"St. Helena."

"That wus it.  They left the cash in a box in Corsiker, 'nother island;
I-talyan, I take it.  But I'll bet a dollar you never find anythin'
there."

"That is as may be."  The captain liberated a full sigh and dug a hand
into a trousers pocket.  He looked cautiously about.  The two of them
were without witnesses.  The landlord was always willing to serve beer
to those in quest of it; but immediately on providing it, he resumed
his interrupted perusal of the sporting column.  At this moment his
soul was flying around the track at Bennington.  When the captain
pulled out his hand it seemed full of bright autumn leaves.  Donovan's
glass was suspended midway between the table and his lips.  Slowly the
glass retraced the half-circle and resumed its perpendicular position
upon the oak.

"Beauties; huh?" said the captain.

"Twenty-dollar bills!"

"Yessir; every one of 'em as good as gold; payable to bearer on demand,
says your Uncle Sam."

"An' why are you makin' me envious this way?" said Donovan crossly.

"Donovan, you and me's been friends off an' on these ten years, ever
since th' commodore bought th' _Laura_.  Well, says he t' me 'Capt'n,
we forgot that Mr. Donovan was in th' room at th' time o' th'
discovery.  Will you be so kind as to impress him with the fact that
this expedition is on the Q.T.?  Not that I think he will say anythin',
but you might add these few bits o' paper to his promise not t' speak.'
Says I, 'I'll trust Mr. Donovan.'  An' I do.  You never broke no
promise yet."

"It pays in the long run," replied Mr. Donovan, vainly endeavoring to
count the bills.

"Well, this 'ere little fortune is yours if you promise to abide by th'
conditions."

"That I keeps my mouth shut."

"An' _not_ open it even to th' Mrs."

Mr. Donovan permitted a doubt to wrinkle his brow.  "That'll be a tough
proposition."

"Put th' money in th' bank and say nothin' till you hear from me,"
advised the captain.

"That's a go."

"Then I give you these five nice ones with th' regards o' th'
commodore."  The captain stripped each bill and slowly laid it down on
the table for the fear that by some curious circumstance there might be
six.

"One hundred?  Capt'n, I'm a--"  Mr. Donovan emptied his glass with a
few swift gulps and banged the table.  "Two more."

The landlord lowered his paper wearily (would they never let him
alone?) and stepped behind the bar.  At the same time Mr. Donovan
folded the bills and stowed them away.

"Not even t' th' Mrs.," he swore.  "Here's luck, Capt'n."

"Same t' you; an' don't get drunk this side o' Jersey City."

And with this admonition the captain drank his beer and thumped off for
the water front, satisfied that the village would hear nothing from Mr.
Donovan.  Nevertheless, it was shameful to let a hundred go that easy;
twenty would have served.  He was about to hail the skiff when he was
accosted by the quiet little man he had recently observed sitting alone
in the corner of Swan's office.

"Pardon, but you are Captain Flanagan of the yacht _Laura_?"

"Yessir," patiently.  "But the owner never lets anybody aboard he don't
know, sir."

"I do not desire to come aboard, my Captain.  What I wish to know is if
his excellency the admiral is at home."

"His excellency" rather confounded the captain for a moment; but he
came about without "takin' more'n a bucketful," as he afterward
expressed it to Halloran the engineer.  "I knew right then he wus a
furriner; I know 'em.  They ain't no excellencies in th' navy.  But I
tells him that the commodore was snug in his berth up yonder, and with
that he looks to me like I wus a lady.  I've seen him in Swan's at
night readin'; allus chasin' butterflies when he sees 'em in the
street."  And the captain rounded out this period by touching his
forehead as a subtle hint that in his opinion the foreigner carried no
ballast.

In the intervening time the subject of this light suggestion was
climbing the hill with that tireless resiliant step of one born to
mountains.  No task appeared visibly to weary this man.  Small as he
was, his bones were as strong and his muscles as stringy as a wolf's.
If the butterfly was worth while he would follow till it fell to his
net or daylight withdrew its support.  Never he lost patience, never
his smile faltered, never his mild spectacled eyes wavered.  He was a
savant by nature; he was a secret agent by choice.  Who knows anything
about rare butterflies appreciates the peril of the pursuit; one never
picks the going and often stumbles.  He was a hunter of butterflies by
nature; but he possessed a something more than a mere smattering of
other odd crafts.  He was familiar with precious gems, marbles he knew
and cameos; he could point out the weakness in a drawing, the false
effort in a symphony; he was something of mutual interest to every man
and woman he met.

So it fell out very well that Admiral Killigrew was fond of
butterflies.  Still, he should have been equally glad to know that the
sailor's hobby inclined toward the exploits of pirates.  M. Ferraud was
a modest man.  That his exquisite brochure on lepidopterous insects was
in nearly all the public libraries of the world only gratified, but
added nothing to his vanity.

As it oftentimes happens to a man whose mind is occupied with other
things, the admiral, who received M. Ferraud in the library, saw
nothing in the name to kindle his recollection.  He bade the savant to
be seated while he read the letter of introduction which had been
written by the secretary of the navy.

"MY DEAR KILLIGREW:

"This will introduce to you Monsieur Ferraud, of the butterfly fame.
He has learned of the success of your efforts in the West Indies and
South America and is eager to see your collection.  Do what you can for
him.  I know you will, for you certainly must have his book.  I myself
do not know a butterfly from a June-bug, but it will be a pleasure to
bring you two together."

Breitmann arranged his papers neatly and waited to be dismissed.  He
had seen M. Ferraud at Swan's, but had formed no opinion regarding him;
in fact, the growth of his interest had stopped at indifference.  On
his part, the new arrival never so much as gave the secretary a second
glance--the first was sufficient.  And while the admiral read on, M.
Ferraud examined the broken skin on his palms.

"Mr. Ferraud!  Well, well; this is a great honor, I'm sure.  It was
very kind of them to send you here.  Where is your luggage?"

"I am stopping at Swan's Hotel."

"We shall have your things up this very night."

"Oh!" said Ferraud, in protest; though this was the very thing he
desired.

"Not a word!"  The admiral summoned the butler, who was the general
factotem at The Pines, and gave a dozen orders.

"Ah, you Americans!" laughed M. Ferraud, pyramiding his fingers.  "You
leave us breathless."

"Your book has delighted me.  But I'm afraid my collection will not pay
you for your trouble."

"That is for me to decide.  My South American specimens are all
seconds.  On the other hand, you have netted yours yourself."

And straightway a bond of friendship was riveted between these two men
which still remains bright and untarnished by either absence or
forgetfulness.  They bent over the cases, agreed and disagreed, the one
with the sharp gestures, the other with the rise and fall of the voice.
For them nothing else existed; they were truly engrossed.

Breitmann, hiding a smile that was partly a yawn, stole quietly away.
Butterflies did not excite his concern in the least.

M. Ferraud was charmed.  He was voluble.  Never had he entered a more
homelike place, large enough to be called a chateau, yet as cheerful as
a winter's fire.  And the daughter!  Her French was the elegant speech
of Tours, her German Hanoverian.  Incomparable!  And she was not
married?  _Helas_!  How many luckless fellows walked the world
desolate?  And this was M. Fitzgerald the journalist?  And M. Breitmann
had also been one?  How delighted he was to be here!  All this flowed
on with perfect naturalness; there wasn't a false note anywhere.  At
dinner he diffused a warmth and geniality which were infectious.  Laura
was pleased and amused; and she adored her father for these impulses
which brought to the board, unexpectedly, such men as M. Ferraud.

M. Ferraud did not smoke, but he dissipated to the extent of drinking
three small cups of coffee after dinner.

"You are right," he acknowledged--there had been a slight dispute
relative to the methods of roasting the berry--"Europe does not roast
its coffee, it burns it.  The aroma, the bouquet!  I am beaten."

"So am I," Fitzgerald reflected sadly, snatching a vision of the girl's
animated face.

Three days he had ridden into the country with her, or played tennis,
or driven down to the village and inspected the yacht.  He had been
lonely so long and this beautiful girl was such a good comrade.  One
moment he blessed the prospective treasure hunt, another he execrated
it.  To be with this girl was to love her; and whither this pleasurable
idleness would lead him he was neither blind nor self-deceiving.  But
with the semi-humorous recklessness which was the leaven of his
success, he thrust prudence behind him and stuck to the primrose path.
He had played with fire before, but never had the coals burned so
brightly.  He did not say that she was above him; mentally and by birth
they were equals; simply, he was compelled to admit of the truth that
she was beyond him.  Money.  That was the obstacle.  For what man will
live on his wife's bounty?  Suppose they found the treasure (and with
his old journalistic suspicion he was still skeptical), and divided it;
why, the interest on his share would not pay for her dresses.  To the
ordinary male eye her gowns looked inexpensive, but to him who had
picked up odd bits of information not usually in the pathway of man, to
him there was no secret about it.  That bodice and those sleeves of old
Venetian point would have eaten up the gains of any three of his most
prosperous months.

And Breitmann, dropping occasionally the ash of his cigarette on the
tray, he, too, was pondering.  But his German strain did not make it so
easy for him as for Fitzgerald to give concrete form to his thought.
The star, as he saw it, had a nebulous appearance.

M. Ferraud chatted gaily.  Usually a man who holds his audience is of
single purpose.  The little Frenchman had two aims: one, to keep the
conversation on subjects of his own selection, and the other, to study
without being observed.  Among one of his own tales (butterflies) he
told of a chase he once had made in the mountains of the Moors, in
Abyssinia.  To illustrate it he took up one of the nets standing in the
corner.  In his excitable way he was a very good actor.  And when he
swooped down the net to demonstrate the end of the story, it caught on
a button on Breitmann's coat.

"Pardon!" said M. Ferraud, with a blithe laugh.  "The butterfly I was
describing was not so big."

Breitmann freed himself amid general laughter.  And with Laura's rising
the little after-dinner party became disorganized.

It was yet early; but perhaps she had some thought she wished to be
alone with.  This consideration was the veriest bud in growth; still,
it was such that she desired the seclusion of her room.  She swung
across her shoulders the sleepy Angora and wished the men good night.

The wire bell in the hall clock vibrated twice; two o'clock of the
morning.  A streak of moon-shine fell aslant the floor and broke off
abruptly.  Before the safe in the library stood Breitmann, a small tape
in his hand.  For several minutes he contemplated somberly the nickel
combination wheel.  He could open it for he knew the combination.  To
open it would be the work of a moment.  Why, then, did he hesitate?
Why not pluck it forth and disappear on the morrow?  The admiral had
not made a copy, and without the key he might dig up Corsica till the
crack of doom.  The flame on the taper crept down.  The man gave a
quick movement to his shoulders; it was the shrug, not of impatience
but of resignation.  He saw the lock through the haze of a conjured
face.  He shut his eyes, but the vision remained.  Slowly he drew his
fingers over the flame.

Yet, before the flame died wholly it touched two points of light in the
doorway, the round crystals of a pair of spectacles.

"Two souls with but a single thought!" the secret agent murmured.
"Poor devil! why does he hesitate?  Why does he not take it and be
gone?  Is he still honest?  _Peste_!  I must be growing old.  I shall
not ruin him, I shall save him.  It is not goot politics, but it is
good Christianity.  _Schlafen Sie wohl, Hochwohl geboren_!"

CHAPTER XIII

THE WOMAN WHO KNEW

"Don't you sometimes grow weary for an abiding place?"  Laura pulled
off her gauntlets and laid her hot hands on the cool lichen-grown
stones of the field-wall.  The bridle-rein hung over her arm.
Fitzgerald had drawn his through a stirrup.  "Think of wandering here
and there, with never a place to come back to."

"I have thought of it often in the few days I have been here.  I have a
home in New York, but I could not possibly afford to live in it; so I
rent it; and when I want to go fishing there's enough under hand to pay
the expenses.  My poor old dad!  He was always indorsing notes for his
friends, or carrying stock for them; and nothing ever came back.  I am
afraid the disillusions broke his heart.  And then, perhaps I was a
bitter disappointment.  I was expelled from college in my junior year.
I had no head for figures other than that kind which inhabit the Louvre
and the Vatican."

Her face became momentarily mirthful.

"So I couldn't take hold of the firm for him," he continued.  "And I
suppose the last straw was when I tried my hand at reporting on one of
the newspapers.  He knew that the gathering of riches, so far as I was
concerned, was a closed door.  But I found my level; the business was
and is the only one that ever interested me or fused my energy with
real work."

"But it is real work.  You are one of those men who have done
something.  Most men these days rest on their fathers' laurels."

"It's the line of the least resistance.  I never knew that the Jersey
coast was so picturesque.  What a sweep!  Do you know, your house on
that pine-grown crest reminds me of the Villa Serbelloni, only yonder
is the sea instead of Como?"

"Como."  Her eyes became dreamily half-shut.  Recollection put on its
seven-league boots and annihilated the space between the wall under her
elbows and the gardens of Serbelloni.  Fitzgerald half understood the
thought.  "Isn't Mr. Breitmann just a bit of a mystery to you?" she
asked.  The seven-league boots had returned at a bound.

"In some ways, yes."  He rather resented the abrupt angle; it was not
in poetic touch with the time being.

"He is inclined to be too much reserved.  But last night Mr. Ferraud
succeeded in tearing down some of it.  If I could put in a book what
all you men have seen and taken part in!  Mr. Breitmann would be almost
handsome but for those scars."

He kicked the turf at the foot of the wall.  "In Germany they are
considered beauty-spots."

"I am not in sympathy with that custom."

"Still, it requires courage of a kind."

"The noblest wounds are those that are carried unseen.  Student scars
are merely patches of vanity."

"He has others besides those.  He was nearly killed in the Soudan."
Fitzgerald was compelled to offer some defense for the absent.  That
Breitmann had lied to him, that his appearance here had been in the
regular order of things, did not take away the fact that the Bavarian
was a man and a brave one.  Closely as he had watched, up to the
present he had learned absolutely nothing; and to have shown Breitmann
the telegram would have accomplished nothing further than to have put
him wholly on guard.

"Have you no scars?" mischief in her eyes.

"Not yet;" and the force of his gaze turned hers aside.  "Yet I must
not forget my conscience; 'tis pretty well battered up."

She greeted this with laughter.  She had heard men talk like this
before.  "You have probably never done a mean or petty thing in all
your life."

"Mean and petty things never disturb a man's conscience.  It's the big
things that scar."

"That's a platitude."

"Then my end of the conversation is becoming flat."

"Confess that you are eager to return to the great highways once more."

"I shall confess nothing of the sort.  I should like to stay here for a
hundred years."

"You would miss us all very much then," merrily.  "And Napoleon's
treasure would have gone in and out of innumerable pockets!"

"Do you really and truly believe that we shall bring home a single
franc of it?" facing her with incredulous eyes.

"Really and truly.  And why not?  Treasures have been found before.
Fie on you for a Doubting Thomas!"

"We sometimes go many miles to find, in the end, that the treasure was
all the time under our very eyes."

"Hyperbole!"  But she looked down at the lichen again and began pealing
it off the stone.  She thought of a duke she knew.  At this instant he
would have been telling her that she was the most beautiful woman since
Helen.  What a relief this man at her side was!  She was perfectly
aware that he admired her, but he veiled his tributes with half-smiles
and flashes of humor.  "What a gay little man that Mr. Ferraud is!"

"Lively as a cricket.  Your father, I understand, is to take him as far
as Marseilles.  After to-night everything will be quite formal, I
suppose.  Honestly, I feel ill at ease in accepting your splendid
hospitality.  I'm an interloper.  I haven't even the claim of an
ordinary introduction.  It has been very, very kind of you."

"You know Mrs. Coldfield.  I will, if you wish it, ask her to present
you to me."

"I am really serious."

"So am I."

"They will be here to-morrow?"

"Yes.  And in four days we sail.  Oh, it is all so beautiful!  A real
treasure hunt."

"It does not seem possible that I have been here a week.  It has been a
long time since I enjoyed myself so thoroughly.  Have you ever wondered
what has become of the other man?"

"The other man?"

"Yes; the other one in or outside the chimney.  I've been thinking
about him this long while.  Hasn't it occurred to you that he may have
other devices?"

"If he has he will find that he has waited too long.  But I would like
to know how he found out.  You see," triumphantly, "he believed that
there is one."  She shook the rein, for the sleek mare was nozzling her
shoulder and pawing slightly, "Let us be off."

She put her small booted foot on his palm and vaulted into the saddle,
and he swung on to his mount.  He stuffed his cap into a pocket, for he
was no fair-weather horseman, but loved the tingle of the wind rushing
through his hair; and the two cantered down the clear sandy road.

"_En avant_!" she cried joyously, with a light stroke of her whip.

For half a mile they ran and drew in at the fork in the road.
Exhilaration was in the eyes of both of them.

"There's nothing equal to it.  You feel alive.  And off there," with a
wave of the whip toward the sea, "off there lies our fortunes.  O happy
day! to take part in a really truly adventure, without the assistance
of a romancer!"

"I think you are one of the most charming women I have ever met," he
replied.

"Some women would object to the modification, but I rather like it."

"I withdraw the modification."  The smile on his lips was not reflected
in his eyes.

The antithesis of the one expression to the other did not annoy her;
rather she was sensitive to a tender exultance the recurrence of which,
later in the day, subdued her: for Breitmann at tea turned a few
phrases of a similar character.  Fitzgerald was light-hearted and
boyish, Breitmann was grave and dignified; but in the eyes of each
there was a force she had encountered so seldom as to forget its being.
Breitmann, in his capacity of secretary, was not so often in her
company as Fitzgerald; nevertheless she was subtly attracted toward
him.  When he was of the mind he could invent a happy compliment with a
felicity no less facile than Fitzgerald.  And the puzzling thing of it
all was, both men she knew from their histories had never been
ornaments at garden-parties where compliments are current coin.  She
liked Fitzgerald, but she admired Breitmann, a differentiation which
she had no inclination to resolve into first principles.  That
Breitmann was a secretary for hire drew no barrier in her mind.  She
had known many gentlemen of fine families who had served in like
situations.  There were no social distinctions.  On the other hand, she
never felt wholly comfortable with Breitmann.  There was not the least
mistrust in this feeling.  It was rather because she instinctively felt
that he was above his occupation.  To sum it up briefly, Breitmann was
difficult to understand and Fitzgerald wasn't.

Fitzgerald had an idea; boldly put, it was a grave suspicion.  Not once
had he forgotten the man in the chimney.  Once the finger had pointed
at Breitmann or some one with whom he was in understanding.  This had
proved to be groundless.  But he kept turning over the incident and
inspecting it from all sides.  There were others a-treasure hunting;
persons unknown; and a man might easily become desperate in the pursuit
of two-million francs, almost half a million of American money, more,
for some of these coins would be rare.  He had thoroughly searched the
ground outside the cellar-window, but the sea gravel held its secret
with a tenacity as baffling as the mother-sea herself.  There was a new
under-groom, or rather there had been.  He had left, and where he had
gone no one knew.  Fitzgerald dismissed the thought of him; at the most
he could have been but an accomplice, one to unlock the cellar-window.

While Breitmann lingered near Laura, offering what signs of admiration
he dared, and while the admiral chatted to his country neighbors who
were gathered round the tea-table, Fitzgerald and M. Ferraud were
braced against the terrace wall, a few yards farther on, and exchanged
views on various peoples.

"America is a wonderful country," said M. Ferraud, when they had
exhausted half a dozen topics.  He spread out his hands, Frenchman-wise.

"So it is."  Fitzgerald threw away his cigarette.

"And how foolish England was over a pound of tea."

"Something like that."

"But see what she lost!" with a second gesture.

"In one way it would not have mattered.  She would patronize us as she
still does."

"Do you not resent it, this patronizing attitude?"

"Oh, no--we are very proud to be patronized by England," cynically.
"It's a fine thing to have a lord tell you that you wear your clothes
jolly well."

"I wonder if you are serious or jesting."

"I am very serious at this moment," said Fitzgerald quietly catching
the other by the wrist and turning the palm.

M. Ferraud looked into his face with an astonishment on his own, most
genuine.  But he did not struggle.  "Why do you do that?"

"I am curious, Mr. Ferraud, when I see a hand like this.  Would you
mind letting me see the other?"

"Not in the least."  M. Ferraud offered the other hand.

Fitzgerald let go.  "What was your object?"

"Mon dieu! what object?"

Fitzgerald lowered his voice.  "What was your object in digging holes
in yonder chimney?  Did you know what was there?  And what do you
propose to do now?"

M. Ferraud coolly, took off his spectacles and polished the lenses.  It
needed but a moment to adjust them.  "What are you talking about?"

"You are really M. Ferraud?" said the young man coldly.

The Frenchman produced a wallet and took out a letter.  It was written
by the president of France, introducing M. Ferraud to the ambassador at
Washington.  Next, there was a passport, and far more important than
either of these was the Legion of Honor.  "Yes, I am Anatole Ferraud."

"That is all I desire to know."

"Shall we return to the ladies?" asked M. Ferraud, restoring his
treasures.

"Since there is nothing more to be said at present.  It seems strange
to me that foreign politics should find its way here."

"Politics?  I am only a butterfly hunter."

"There are varieties.  But you are the man.  I shall find out!"

"Possibly," returned M. Ferraud thinking hard.

"I give you fair warning that if anything is missing--"

"Oh, Mr. Fitzgerald!"

"I shall know where to look for it," with a smile which had no humor in
it.

"Why not denounce me now?"

"Would it serve your purpose?"

"No," with deeper gravity.  "It would be a great disaster; how great, I
can not tell you."

"Then, I shall say nothing."

"About what?" dryly, even whimsically.

"About your being a secret agent from France."

This time M. Ferraud's glance proved that he was truly startled.  Only
three times in his career had his second life been questioned or
suspected.  He eyed his hands accusingly; they had betrayed him.  This
young man was clever, cleverer than he had thought.  He had been too
confident and had committed a blunder.  Should he trust him?  With that
swift unerring instinct which makes the perfect student of character,
he said: "You will do me a great favor not to impart this suspicion to
any one else."

"Suspicion?"

"It is true: I am a secret agent;" and he said it proudly.

"You wish harm to none here?"

"_Mon dieu_!  No.  I am here for the very purpose of saving you all
from heartaches and misfortune and disillusion.  And had I set to work
earlier I should have accomplished all this without a single one of you
knowing it.  Now the matter will have to go on to its end."

"Can you tell me anything?"

"Not now.  I trust you; will you trust me?"

Fitzgerald hesitated for a space.  "Yes."

"For that, thanks," and M. Ferraud put out a hand.  "It is clean, Mr.
Fitzgerald, for all that the skin is broken."

"Of that I have no doubt."

"Before we reach Corsica you will know."

And so temporarily that ended the matter.  But as Fitzgerald went over
to the chair just vacated by the secretary, he found that there was a
double zest to life now.  This would be far more exciting than dodging
ice-floes and freezing one's toes.

Laura told him the news.  Their guests would arrive that evening in
time for dinner.

It was Breitmann's habit to come down first.  He would thrum a little
on the piano or take down some old volume.  To-night it was Heine.  He
had not met any of the guests yet, which he considered a piece of good
fortune.  But God only knew what would happen when _she_ saw him.  He
dreaded the moment, dreaded it with anguish.  She was a woman, schooled
in acting, but a time comes when the best acting is not sufficient.  If
only in some way he might have warned her; but no way had opened.  She
would find him ready, however, ready with his eyes, his lips, his
nerves.  What would the others think or say if she lost her presence of
mind?  His teeth snapped.  He read on.  The lamp threw the light on the
scarred side of his face.

He heard some one enter, and his gaze stole over the top of his book.
This person was a woman, and her eyes traveled from object to object
with a curiosity tinged with that incertitude which attacks us all when
we enter an unfamiliar room.  She was dressed in black, showing the
white arms and neck.  Her hair was like ripe wheat after a rain-storm:
oh, but he knew well the color of her eyes, blue as the Adriatic.  She
was a woman of perhaps thirty, matured, graceful, handsome.  The sight
of her excited a thrill in his veins, deny it how he would.

She scanned the long rows of books, the strange weapons, the heroic and
sinister flags, the cases of butterflies.  With each inspection she
stepped nearer and nearer, till by reaching out his hand he might have
touched her.  Quietly he rose.  It was a critical moment.

She was startled.  She had thought she was alone.

"Pardon me," she said, in a low, musical voice; "I did not know that
any one was here."  And then she saw his face.  Her own blanched and
her hands went to her heart.  "Karl?"

CHAPTER XIV

THE DRAMA BEGINS

She swayed a little, but recovered as the pain of the shock was
succeeded by numbness.  That out of the dark of this room, into the
light of that lamp, in this house so far removed from cities that it
seemed not a part of the world . . .  there should step this man!  Why
had there been no hint of his presence?  Why had not the clairvoyance
of despair warned her?  One of her hands rose and pressed over her
eyes, as if to sponge out this phantom.  It was useless; it was no
dream; he was still there, this man she had neither seen nor heard of
for five years because her will was stronger than her desire, this man
who had broken her heart as children break toys!  And deep below all
this present terror was the abiding truth that she still loved him and
always would love him.  The shame of this knowledge did more than all
else to rouse and to nerve her.

"Karl?"  It was like an echo.

"Yes."  There was war in his voice and attitude and not without reason.
He had wronged this woman, not with direct intention it was true, but
nevertheless he had wronged her; and her presence here could mean
nothing less than that fate had selected this spot for the reckoning.
She could topple down his carefully reared schemes with the same ease
with which he had blown over hers.  And to him these schemes were life
to his breath and salt to his blood, everything.  What was one woman?
cynically.  "Yes, it is I," in the tongue native to them both.

"And what do you here?"

"I am Admiral Killigrew's private secretary."  He wet his lips.  He was
not so strong before this woman as he had expected to be.  The glamour
of the old days was faintly rekindled at the sight of her.  And she
_was_ beautiful.

"Then, this is the house?" in a whisper.

"It is."

"You terrify me!"

"Hildegarde, this is your scheme," shrugging.  "Tell them all you know;
break me, ruin me.  Here is a fair opportunity for revenge."

"God forbid!" she cried with a shiver.  "Were you guilty of all crimes,
I could only remember that once I loved you."

"You shame me," he replied frankly, but with infinite relief.  "You
have outdone me in magnanimity.  Will you forgive me?"

"Oh, yes.  Forgiveness is one of the few things you men can not rob us
of."  She spoke without bitterness, but her eyes were dim and her lips
dropped.  "What shall we do?  They must not know that we have met."

"Cathewe knows," moodily.

"I had forgotten!"

"I leave all in your hands.  Do what you will.  If you break me--and
God knows well that you can do it--it would be only an act of justice.
I have been a damned scoundrel; I am man enough to admit of that."

She saw his face more clearly now.  Time had marked it.  There were new
lines at the corners of his eyes and the cheek-bones were more
prominent.  Perhaps he had suffered too.  "You will always have the
courage to do," she said, "right or wrong in a great manner."

"Am I wrong to seek--"

"Hush!  I know.  It is what you must thrust aside or break to reach it,
Karl.  The thing itself is not wrong, but you will go about it wrongly.
You can not help that."

He did not reply.  Perhaps she was right.  Indeed, was she not herself
an example of it?  If there was one thing in his complex career that he
regretted more than another it was the deception of this woman.  He did
not possess the usual vanity of the sex; there was nothing here to be
proud of; his dream of conquest was not over the kingdom of women.

"Some one is coming," he said, listening.

"Leave it all to me."

"Ah! . . ." with a hand toward her.

"Do not say it.  I understand the thought.  If only you loved me, you
would say!" the iron in her voice unmistakable.

He let his hand fall.  He was sorry.

Presently the others made their entrance upon the scene, a singular
anticlimax.  The admiral rang for the cocktails.  Introductions
followed.

"Is it not strange?" said the singer to Laura.  "I stole in here to
look at the trophies, when I discovered Mr. Breitmann whom I once knew
in Munich."

"Mr. Cathewe," said the young hostess, "this is Mr. Breitmann, who is
aiding father in the compilation of his book."

"Mr. Breitmann and I have met before," said Cathewe soberly.

The two men bowed.  Cathewe never gave his hand to any but his
intimates.  But Laura, who was not aware of this ancient reserve,
thought that both of them showed a lack of warmth.  And Fitzgerald, who
was watching all comers now, was sure that the past of his friend and
Breitmann interlaced in some way.

"So, young man," said Mrs. Coldfield, a handsome motherly woman, "you
have had the impudence to let five years pass without darkening my
doors.  What excuse have you?"

"I'm guilty of anything you say," Fitzgerald answered humbly.  "What
shall be my punishment?"

"You shall take Miss Laura in and I shall sit at your left."

"For my sins it shall be as you say.  But, really, I have been so
little in New York," he added.

"I forgive you simply because you have not made a failure of your
mother's son.  And you look like her, too."  It is one of the
privileges of old persons to compare the young with this or that parent.

"You are flattering me.  Dad used to say that I was as homely as a
hedge-fence."

"Now you're fishing, and I'm too old a fish to rise to such a cast."

"I heard you sing in Paris a few years ago," said M. Ferraud.

"Yes?"  Hildegarde von Mitter wondered who this little man could be.

"And you sing no more?"

"No.  The bird has flown; only the woman remains."  They were at the
table now, and she absently plucked the flowers beside her plate.

"Ah, to sing as you did, and then to disappear, to vanish!  You had no
right to do so.  You belonged to the public," animatedly.

"The public is always selfish; it always demands more than any single
person can give to it.  Pardon?" she said as Cathewe leaned to speak to
her.  "I did not hear."

M. Ferraud nibbled his crisp celery.

"I asked, what will you do?" repeated Cathewe for her ear only.

"What do you mean?"

"Did you know that he was here?"

"I should not have been seated at this table had I known."

"Some day you are going to tell me all about it," he asserted; "and you
are going to smile when you answer me."

"Thank you.  I forgot.  My dear friend, I am never going to tell you
all about it.  Why did you not come first?" her voice vibrating.

"You still love him."

"That is not kind," striving hard to keep the smile on her trembling
lips.  "Oh, I beg of you, do not make this friendship impossible.  Do
not rob me of the one man I trust."

Cathewe motioned aside the fish and reached for his sauterne.  "I have
loved you faithfully and loyally for seven years.  I have tried to win
you by all those roads a man may honorably traverse in quest of the one
woman.  For seven years; and for something like three I have stayed
away at your command.  Will you believe it?  Sometimes my hands ache
for his throat . . .  Smile, they are looking."

It was a crooked smile.  "Why did I ever tell you?"

"Why did you ever tell me . . . only part?  It is the other part I wish
to know.  Till I learn what that is I shall never leave you.  You will
find that there is a difference between love and infatuation."

"As I have never known infatuation I can not tell the difference.  Now,
no more, unless you care to see me break down before them.  For if you
tell me that you have loved me seven years, I have loved him eight,"
cruelly, for Cathewe was pressing her cruelly.

"Devil take him!  What do you find in the man?"

"What do you find in me?" her eyes filled with anger.

"Forgive me, Hildegarde; I am blind and mad to-night.  I did not expect
to find him here either."

Breitmann had tried ineffectually to read their lips.  She had given
her word, and once given, he knew of old that she never broke it; but
he was keenly alive that in some way he was the topic of the inaudible
conversation.  As he sat here to-night he knew why he had never loved
Hildegarde, why in fact, he had never loved any woman.  The one great
passion which comes in the span of life was centered in the girl beside
him, dividing her moments between him and Fitzgerald.  Strange, but he
had not known it till he saw the two women together.  For once his nice
calculations had ceased to run smoothly; there appeared now a knot in
the thread for which he saw no untying.

"You do not sing now?" asked Laura across the table.

"No," Hildegarde answered, "my voice is gone."

"Oh, I am so sorry."

"It does not matter.  I can hum a little to myself; there is yet some
pleasure in that.  But in opera, no, never again.  Has not Mrs.
Coldfield told you?  No?  Imagine!  One night in Dresden, in the middle
of the aria, my voice broke miserably and I could not go on."

"And her heart nearly broke with it," interposed Mrs. Coldfield, with
the best intentions, nearer the truth than she knew.  "I am sorry,
Laura, that I never told you before."

Hildegarde laughed.  "Sooner or later this must happen.  I worked too
hard, perhaps.  At any rate, the opera will know me no more."

There was the hard blue of flint in Cathewe's eyes as they met and held
Breitmann's.  There was a duel, and the latter was routed.  But hate
burned fiercely in the breast against the man who could compel him to
lower his eyes.  Some day he would pay back that glance.

Now, M. Ferraud had missed nothing.  He twisted the talk into other
channels with his usual adroitness, but all the while there was
bubbling in his mind the news that these two men had met before.  The
history of Hildegarde von Mitter was known to him.  But how much did
she know, or this man Cathewe?  The woman was a thoroughbred.  He,
Anatole Ferraud, knew; it was his business to know; and that she should
happen upon the scene he considered as one of these rare good pieces of
luck that fall to the lot of few.  There would be something more than
treasure hunting here; an intricate comedy-drama, with as many
well-defined sides as a diamond.  He ate his endive with pleasure and
sipped the old yellow _Pol Roger_ with his eyes beaming toward the
gods.  To be, after a fashion, the prompter behind the scenes; to be
able to read the final line before the curtain!  Butterflies and
butterflies and pins and pins.

Did Laura note any of the portentous glances, those exchanged between
the singer and Cathewe and Breitmann?  Perhaps.  At all events she felt
a curiosity to know how long Hildegarde von Mitter had known her
father's secretary.  There was no envy in her heart as again she
acknowledged the beauty of the other woman; moreover, she liked her and
was going to like her more.  Impressions were made upon her almost
instantly, for good or bad, and rarely changed.

She turned oftenest to Fitzgerald, for he made particular effort to
entertain, and he succeeded better than he dreamed.  It kept turning
over in her mind what a whimsical, capricious, whirligig was at work.
It was droll, this man at her side, chatting to her as if he had known
her for years, when, seven or eight days ago, he had stood, a man all
unknown to her, on a city corner, selling plaster of Paris statuettes
on a wager; and but for Mrs. Coldfield, she had passed him for ever.
Out upon the prude who would look askance at her for harmless daring!

"Drop into my room before you turn in," urged Fitzgerald to Cathewe.

"That I shall, my boy.  I've some questions to ask of you."

But a singular idea came into creation, and this was for him, Cathewe,
to pay Breitmann a visit on the way to Fitzgerald's room.  Not one man
in a thousand would have dared put this idea into a plan of action.
But neither externals nor conventions deterred Cathewe when he sought a
thing.  He rapped lightly on the door of the secretary's room.

"Come in."

Cathewe did so, gently closing the door behind him.  Breitmann was in
his shirt-sleeves.  He rose from his chair and laid down his cigarette.
A faint smile broke the thin line of his mouth.  He waited for his
guest, or, rather, this intruder, to break the silence.  And as Cathewe
did not speak at once, there was a tableau during which each was
speculatively busy with the eyes.

"The vicissitudes of time," said Cathewe, "have left no distinguishable
marks upon you."

Breitmann bowed.  He remained standing.

And Cathewe had no wish to sit.  "I never expected to see you in this
house."

"A compliment which I readily return."

"A private secretary; I never thought of you in that capacity."

"One must take what one can," tranquilly.

"A good precept."  Cathewe rolled the ends of his mustache, a trifle
perplexed how to put it.  "But there should be exceptions.  What," and
his voice became crisp and cold, "what was Hildegarde von Mitter to
you?"

"And what is that to you?"

"My question first."

"I choose not to answer it."

Again they eyed each other like fencers.

"Were you married?"

Breitmann laughed.  Here was his opportunity to wring this man's heart;
for he knew that Cathewe loved the woman.  "You seem to be in her
confidence.  Ask her."

"A poltroon would say as much.  There is a phase in your make-up I have
never fully understood.  Physically you are a brave man, but morally
you are a cad and a poltroon."

"Take care!"  Breitmann stepped forward menacingly.

"There will be no fisticuffs," contemptuously.

"Not if you are careful.  I have answered your questions; you had
better leave at once."

"She is loyal to you.  It was not her voice that broke that night; it
was her heart, you have some hold over her."

"None that she can not throw off at any time."  Breitmann's mind was
working strangely.

"If she would have me I would marry her tomorrow," went on Cathewe,
playing openly, "I would marry her to-morrow, priest or protestant, for
her religion would be mine."

There was a spark of admiration in Breitmann's eyes.  This man Cathewe
was out of the ordinary.  Well, as for that, so was he himself.  He
walked silently to the door and opened it, standing aside for the other
to pass.  "She is perfectly free.  Marry her.  She is all and more than
you wish her to be.  Will you go now?"

Cathewe bowed and turned on his heel.  Breitmann had really got the
better of him.

A peculiar interview, and only two strong men could have handled it in
so few words.  Not a word above normal tones; once or twice only, in
the flutter of the eyelids or in the gesture of the hands, was there
any sign that had these been primitive times the two would have gone
joyously at each other's throats.

"I owed her that much," said Breitmann as he locked the door.

"It did not matter at all to me," was Cathewe's thought, as he knocked
on Fitzgerald's door and heard his cheery call, "I only wanted to know
what sort of man he is."

"Oh, I really don't know whether I like him or not," declared
Fitzgerald.  "I have run across him two or three times, but we were
both busy.  He has told me a little about himself.  He's been knocked
about a good deal.  Has a title, but doesn't use it."

"A title?  That is news to me.  Probably it is true."

"I was surprised to learn that you knew him at all."

"Not very well.  Met him in Munich mostly."

A long pause.

"Isn't Miss Killigrew just rippin'?  There's a comrade for some man.
Lucky devil, who gets her!  She is new to me every day."

"I think I warned you."

"You were a nice one, never to say a word that you knew the admiral!"

"Are you complaining?"

Fitzgerald laughed; no not exactly; he wasn't complaining.

"You remember the caravan trails in the Lybian desert; the old ones on
the way to Khartoum?  The pathway behind her is like that, marked with
the bleached bones of princely and ducal and common hopes."  Cathewe
stretched out in his chair.  "Since she was eighteen, Jack, she has
crossed the man-trail like a sandstorm, and quite as innocently, too."

"Oh, rot!  I'm no green and salad youth."

"Your bones will be only the tougher, that's all."

Another pause.

"But what's your opinion regarding Breitmann?"

Cathewe laced his fingers and bent his chin on them.  "There's a great
rascal or a great hero somewhere under his skin."

CHAPTER XV

THEY GO A-SAILING

Five o'clock in the afternoon, and a mild blue sea flashing under the
ever-deepening orange of the falling sun.  Golden castles and gray
castles and castles of shadowed-white billowed in the east; turrets
rose and subsided and spires of cloud-cities formed and re-formed.  The
yacht _Laura_, sleek and swan-white, her ensign and colors folding and
unfolding, lifting and sinking, as the shore breeze stirred them, was
making ready for sea; and many of the villagers had come down to the
water front to see her off.  Very few sea-going vessels, outside of
freighters, ever stopped in this harbor; and naturally the departures
of the yacht were events equalled only by her arrivals.  The railroad
station was close to the wharves, and the old sailors hated the sight
of the bright rails; for the locomotive had robbed them of the
excitement of the semi-weekly packets that used to coast up and down
between New York and Philadelphia.

"Wonder what poor devil of a pirate is going to have his bones turned
over this trip?" said the station-agent to Mr. Donovan, who, among
others on the station platform, watched the drab anchor as it clanked
jerkily upward to the bows, leaving a swivel and a boil on the waters
which had released it so grudgingly.

"I guess it ain't goin' t' be any ol' pirate this time," replied Mr.
Donovan, with a pleasurable squeeze of the pocket-book over his heart.

"Well, I hope he finds what he's going after," generously.  "He is the
mainstay of this old one-horse town.  Say, she's a beauty, isn't she?
Why, man, that anchor alone is worth more than we make in four months.
And think of the good things to eat and drink.  If I had a million, no
pirates or butterflies for mine.  I'd hie me to Monte Carlo and bat the
tiger all over the place."

Mr. Donovan knew nothing definite about Monte Carlo, but he would have
liked to back up against some of those New York contractors on their
own grounds.

"Hi!  There she goes.  Good luck!" cried the station-agent, swinging
his hat with gusto.

The yacht swam out gracefully.  There was a freshening blow from the
southwest, but it would take the yacht half an hour to reach the
deep-sea swells outside.  Her whistle blew cheerily and was answered by
the single tug-boat moored to the railroad wharf.  And after that the
villagers straggled back to their various daily concerns.  Even the
landlord of Swan's Hotel sighed as he balanced up his books.  Business
would be slack for some days to come.

The voyagers were gathered about the stern-rail and a handkerchief or
two fluttered in the wind.  For an hour they tarried there, keeping in
view the green-wooded hills and the white cottages nestling at their
base.  And turn by turn there were glimpses of the noble old house at
the top of the hill.  And some looked upon it for the last time.

"I've had a jolly time up there," said Fitzgerald.  The gulls swooped,
as they crossed and recrossed the milky wake.  "Better time than I
deserved."

"Are you still worried about that adventure?" Laura demanded.  "Dismiss
it from your mind and let it be as if we had known each other for many
years."

"Do you really mean that?"

"To be sure I do," promptly.  "I have stepped to the time of convention
so much that a lapse once in a while is a positive luxury.  But Mrs.
Coldfield had given me a guaranty before I addressed you, so the
adventure was only a make-believe one after all."

There never was a girl quite like this one.  He purloined a sidelong
glance at her which embraced her wholly, from the chic gray cap on the
top of her shapely head to the sensible little boots on her feet.  She
wore a heavy, plaid coat, with deep pockets into which her hands were
snugly buried; and she stood braced against the swell and the wind
which was turning out strong and cold.  The rich pigment in the blood
mantled her cheeks and in her eyes there was still a bit of captive
sunshine.  He knew now that what had been only a possibility was an
assured fact.  Never before had he cursed his father's friends, but he
did so now, silently and earnestly; for their pilfering fingers and
their plausible lies had robbed his father's son of a fine inheritance.
Money.  Never had he desired it so keenly.  A few weeks ago it had
meant the wherewithal to pay his club-dues and to support a decent
table when he traveled.  Now it was everything; for without it he never
could dare lift his eyes seriously to this lovely picture so close to
him, let alone dream of winning her.  He recalled Cathewe's light
warning about the bones of ducal hopes.  What earthly chance had he?
Unconsciously he shrugged.

"You are shrugging!" she cried, noting the expression; for, if he was
secretly observing her, she was surreptitiously contemplating his own
advantages.

"Did I shrug?"

"You certainly did."

"Well," candidly, "it was the thought of money that made me do it."

"I detest it, too."

"Good heavens, I didn't say I detested it!  What I shrugged about was
my own dreary lack of it."

"Bachelors do not require much."

"That's true; but I no longer desire to remain a bachelor."  The very
thing that saved him was the added laughter, forced, miserably forced.
Fool!  The words had slipped without his thinking.

"Gracious!  That sounds horribly like a proposal."  She beamed upon him
merrily.

And his heart sank, for he had been earnest enough, for all his
blunder.  Manlike, he did not grasp the fact that under the
circumstance merriment was all she could offer him, if she would save
him from his own stupidity.

"But I do hate money," she reaffirmed.

"I shouldn't.  Think of what it brings."

"I do; begging letters, impostures, battle-scarred titles, humbugging
shop-keepers, and perhaps one honest friend in a thousand.  And if I
married a title, what equivalent would I get for my money, to put it
brutally?  A chateau, which I should have to patch up, and tolerance
from my husband's noble friends.  Not an engaging prospect."

She threw a handful of biscuit to the gulls, and there was fighting and
screaming almost in touch of the hands.  Then of a sudden the red rim
of the sun vanished behind the settling landscape, and all the grim
loneliness of the sea rose up to greet them.

"It is lonely; let us go and prepare for dinner.  Look!" pointing to a
bright star far down the east.  "And Corsica lies that way."

"And also madness!" was his thought.

"Oh, it seems not quite true that we are all going a-venturing as they
do in the story-books.  The others think we are just going to Funchal.
Remember, you must not tell.  Think of it; a real treasure, every franc
of which must tell a story of its own; love, heroism and devotion."

"Beautiful!  But there must be a rescuing of princesses and fighting
and all that.  I choose the part of remaining by the princess."

"It is yours."  She tilted back her head and breathed and breathed.
She knew the love of living.

"Lucky we are all good sailors," he said.  "There will be a fair sea on
all night.  But how well she rides!"

"I love every beam and bolt of her."

Shoulder to shoulder they bore forward to the companionway, and
immediately the door banged after them.

Breitmann came out from behind the funnel and walked the deck for a
time.  He had studied the two from his shelter.  What were they saying?
Oh, Fitzgerald was clever and strong and good to look at, but . . . !
Breitmann straightened his arms before him, opened and shut his hands
violently.  Like that he would break him if he interfered with any of
his desires.  It would be fully twenty days before they made Ajaccio.
Many things might happen before that time.

Two or three of the crew were lashing on the rail-canvas, and the snap
and flap of it jarred on Breitmann's nerves.  For a week or more his
nerves had been very close to the surface, so close that it had
required all his will to keep his voice and hands from shaking.  As he
passed, one of the sailors doffed his cap and bowed with great respect.

"That's not the admiral, Alphonse," whispered another of the crew,
chuckling.  "It's only his privit secretary."

"Ah, I haf meestake!"

But Alphonse had made no mistake.  He knew who it was.  His mates did
not see the smile of irony, of sly ridicule, which stirred his lips as
he bowed to the passer.  Immediately his rather handsome effeminate
face resumed a stolid vacuity.

His name was not Alphonse; it was a captious offering by the crew,
which, on this yacht, never went further than to tolerate the addition
of a foreigner to their mess.  He had signed a day or two before
sailing; he had even begged for the honor to ship with Captain
Flanagan; and he gave his name as Pierre Picard, to which he had no
more right than to Alphonse.  As Captain Flanagan was too good a sailor
himself to draw distinctions, he was always glad to add a foreign
tongue to his crew.  You never could tell when its use might come in
handy.  That is why Pierre Picard was allowed to drink his soup in the
forecastle mess.

Breitmann continued on, oblivious to all things save his cogitations.
He swung round the bridge.  He believed that he and Cathewe could
henceforth proceed on parallel lines, and there was much to be grateful
for.  Cathewe was quiet but deep; and he, Breitmann, had knocked about
among that sort and knew that they were to be respected.  In all, he
had made only one serious blunder.  He should never have permitted the
vision of a face to deter him.  He should have taken the things from
the safe and vanished.  It had not been, a matter of compunction.  And
yet . . .  Ah, he was human, whatever his dream might be; and he loved
this American girl with all his heart and mind.  It was not lawless
love, but it was ruthless.  When the time was ripe he would speak.
Only a little while now to wait.  The course had smoothed out, the
sailing was easy.  The man in the chimney no longer bothered him.
Whoever and whatever he was, he had not shot his bolt soon enough.

Hildegarde von Mitter.  He stopped against the rail.  The yacht was
burying her nose now, and the white drift from her cut-water seemed
strangely luminous as it swirled obliquely away in the fading twilight.
Hildegarde von Mitter.  Was she to be the flaw in the chain?  No, no;
there should be no regret; he had steeled his heart against any such
weakness.  She had been necessary, and he would be a fool to pause over
a bit of sentimentality.  Her appearance had disorganized his nerves,
that was all.  Peering into his watch he found that he had only half an
hour before dinner.  And it may be added that he dressed with singular
care.

So did Fitzgerald, for that matter.

It took Cathewe just as long, but he did not make two or three
selections of this or that before finding what he wanted.  He was
engrossed most of the time in the sober contemplation of the rubber
flooring or the running sea outside the port-hole.

And this night Hildegarde von Mitter was meditating on the last throw
for her hopes.  She determined to cast once more the full sun of her
beauty into the face of the man she loved; and if she failed to win,
the fault would not be hers.  Why could she not tear out this maddening
heart of hers and fling it to the sea?  Why could she not turn it
toward the man who loved her?  Why, why?  Why should God make her so
unhappy?  Why such injustice?  Why this twisted interlacing of lives?
And yet, amid all these futile seekings, with subconscious deftness her
hands went on with their appointed work.  Never again would the
splendor of her beauty burn as it did this night.

Laura, alone among them all, went serenely about her toilet.  She was
young, and love had not yet spread its puzzle before her feet.

As for the others, they were on the far side of the hill, whence the
paths are smooth and gentle and the prospect is peacefulness and the
retrospect is dimly rosal.  They dressed as they had done those twenty
odd years, plainly.

On the bridge the first officer was standing at the captain's side.

"Captain," he shouted, "where did you get that Frenchman?"

"Picked him up day before yestiddy.  Speaks fair English an' a bit o'
Dago.  They're allus handy on a pleasure-boat.  He c'n keep off th'
riffraff boatmen.  An' _you_ know what persistent cusses they be in the
Med'terranean.  Why?"

"Oh, nothing, if he's a good sailor.  Notice his hands?"

"Why, no!"

"Soft as a woman's."

"Y' don't say!  Well, we'll see 'em tough enough before we sight
Funchal.  Smells good up here; huh?"

"Yes; but I don't mind three months on land, full pay.  Not me.  But
this Frenchman?"

"Oh, he had good papers from a White Star liner; an' you can leave it
to me regardin' his lily-white hands.  By th' way, George, will you
have them bring up my other leg?  Th' salt takes th' color out o' this
here brass ferrule, an' rubber's safer."

"Yes, sir."

There was one vacant chair in the dining-salon.  M. Ferraud was
indisposed.  He could climb the highest peak, he could cross
ice-ridges, with a sheer mile on either side of him, with never an
attack of vertigo; but this heaving mystery under his feet always got
the better of him the first day out.  He considered it the one flaw in
an otherwise perfect system.  Thus, he misled the comedy and the
tragedy of the eyes at dinner, nor saw a woman throw her all and lose
it.

CHAPTER XVI

CROSS-PURPOSES

"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked Fitzgerald, venturing his
head into M. Ferraud's cabin.

"Nothing; to-morrow it will all be gone.  I am always so.  The
miserable water!"  M. Ferraud drew the blanket under his chin.

"When you are better I should like to ask you some questions."

"My friend, you have been very good.  I promise to tell you all when
the time comes.  It will interest you."

"Breitmann?"

"What makes you think I am interested in Mr. Breitmann?"

Fitzgerald could not exactly tell.  "Perhaps I have noticed you
watching him."

"Ah, you have good eyes, Mr. Fitzgerald.  Have you observed that I have
been watching you also?"

"Yes.  You haven't been quite sure of me."  Fitzgerald smiled a little.
"But you may rest your mind.  I never break my word."

"Nor do I, my friend.  Have patience.  Satan take these small boats!"
He stifled a groan.

"A little champagne?"

"Nothing, nothing; thank you."

"As you will.  Good night."

Fitzgerald shut the door and returned to the smoking-room.  Something
or other, concerning Breitmann; he was sure of it.  What had he done,
or what was he going to do, that France should watch him?  There was no
doubt in his mind now; Breitmann had known of this treasure and had
come to The Pines simply to put his hands on the casket.  M. Ferraud
had tried to forestall him.  This much of the riddle was plain.  But
the pivots upon which these things turned!  There was something more
than a treasure in the balance.  Well, M. Ferraud had told him to wait.
There was nothing else for him to do.

A little rubber at bridge was in progress.  The admiral was playing
with Mrs. Coldfield and Cathewe sat opposite Hildegarde.  The latter
two were losing.  She was ordinarily a skilful player, as Cathewe knew;
but to-night she lost constantly, was reckless with her leads, and
played carelessly into her opponents' hands.  Cathewe watched her
gravely.  Never had he seen her more beautiful; and the apprehension
that she would never be his was like a hand straining over his heart.

Yes, she was beautiful; but he did not know that there was death in her
eyes and death in her smile.  Once upon a time he had believed that her
heart had broken; but she was learning that the heart breaks, rebreaks,
and breaks again.

How many times he stood on the precipice during the dinner hour,
Breitmann doubtless would never be told.  A woman scorned is an old
story; still, the story goes on, retold each day.  Education may smooth
the externals, but underneath the fire burns just as furiously as of
old.  To this affront the average woman's mind leaps at once to
revenge; and that she does not always take it depends upon two things;
opportunity, and love, which is more powerful than revenge.  Sometimes,
on hot summer nights, clouds form angrily in the distance; vivid
flashes dartle hither and about, which serve to intensify the evening
darkness.  Thus, a similar phenomenon was taking place in Hildegarde
von Mitter's mind.  The red fires of revenge danced before her eyes,
blurring the spots, on the cards, the blackness of despair crowding
upon each flash.  Let him beware!  With a word she could shatter his
dream; ay, and so she would.  What! sit there and let him turn the
knife in her heart and receive the pain meekly?  No!  It was the
thoughtless brutality with which he went about this new affair that bit
so poignantly.  To show her, so indurately, that she was nothing, that,
despite her magnificent sacrifice, she had never been more than a
convenience, was maddening.  There was no spontaneity in his heart; his
life was a calculation to which various sums were added or subtracted.
With all her beauty, intellect, genius and generosity, she had not been
able to stir him as this young girl was unconsciously doing.  She held
no animosity for the daughter of her host; she was clear-visioned
enough to put the wrong where it belonged.

"It is your lead," said the admiral patiently.

"Pardon me!" contritely.  The gentle reproach brought her back to the
surroundings.

"It is the motion of the boat," hazarded Cathewe, as he saw her lead
the ace.  "I often find myself losing count in waiting for the next
roll."

"Mr. Cathewe is very kind," she replied.  "The truth is, however, I am
simply stupid to-night."

Breitmann continued to speak lowly to Laura.  He was evidently amusing,
for she smiled frequently.  Nevertheless, she smiled as often upon
Fitzgerald.  Never a glance toward the woman who held his fortunes, as
they both believed, in the hollow of her hand.  Breitmann appeared to
have forgotten her existence.

When the rubber was finished Cathewe came into the breach by suggesting
that they two, he and his partner, should take the air for a while; and
Hildegarde thanked him with her eyes.  They tramped the port side,
saying nothing but thinking much.  His arm was under hers to steady
her, and he could feel the catch each time she breathed, as when one
stifles sobs that are tearless.  Ah, to hold her close and to shield
her; but a thousand arms may not intervene between the heart and the
pain that stabs it.  He knew; he knew all about it, and there was
murder in his thought whenever his thought was of Breitmann.  To be
alone with him somewhere, and to fight it out with their bare hands.

She had been schooled in the art of acting, but not in the art of
dissimulation; she had been of the world without having been worldly;
and sometimes she was as frank and simple as a child.  And worldliness
makes a buffer in times like these.  Cathewe thanked God for his own
shell, toughened as it had been in the war of life.

"Look!" he exclaimed, thankful for the diversion.  "There goes a big
liner for Sandy Hook.  How cheerful she looks with all her lights!
Everybody's busy there.  There will be greetings to-morrow, among the
sundry curses of those who have not declared their Parisian models."

They paused by the rail and followed the great ship till all the lights
had narrowed and melted into one; and then, almost at once, the
limitless circle of pitching black water seemed tenanted by themselves
alone.

Without warning she bent swiftly and kissed the hand which lay upon the
rail.  "How kind you are to me!"

"Oh, pshaw!"  But the touch of her lips shook his soul.

Cathewe was one of those sure, quiet men, a staff to lean on, that a
woman may find once in a life-time.  They are, as a usual thing, always
loving deeply and without success, but always invariably cheerful and
buoyant, genuine philosophers.  They are not given much to writing
sonnets or posing; and they can stand aside with a brave heart as the
other man takes the dream out of their lives.  This is not to affirm
that they do not fight stoutly to hold this dream; simply, that they
accept defeat like good soldiers.  There are many heroes who have never
heard war's alarms.  He knew that the whole heart of Hildegarde von
Mitter had yielded to another.  But it had been thrown, as it were,
against a wall; there was this one hope, dimly burning, that some day
he might catch it on the rebound.

"Why are not all men like you?" she asked.

"The world would not be half so interesting.  Some men shall be
fortunate and others shall not; everything has to balance in some way.
I am necessary to one side of the scales, as a weight."  He spoke with
a levity he by no means felt.

"You are always making sport of yourself."

"Would it be wise to weep?  Not at all.  I laugh because I enjoy it,
just the same as I enjoy hunting or going on voyages of discovery."

"To have met _you_!" childishly.

"Don't talk like that.  It always makes me less sad than furious.  And
how do you know?  If it had been written that you should care for me,
would any one else have mattered?  No.  It just is, that's all.  So
we'll go on as we have done in the past, good friends.  Call me when
you need me, and wherever I am I shall come."

"How pitifully weak I must seem to you!"

"You would be no happier if you wore a mask.  Hildegarde, what has
happened?  What power has this adventurer over you?  I can not
understand.  He was man enough to say that you were guiltless of any
wrong."

"He said that?" turning upon him sharply.  She could forgive much.

He could not see her face, but by the tone of her voice he knew it had
brightened.  "Yes.  I did a freakish thing the night we arrived at the
Killigrews'.  I forced him into a corner, but it did not pan out as I
hoped.  So far as it touched me, it wasn't necessary, as I have told
you a thousand times.  Your past is nothing to me; your future is
everything, and I want it.  God knows how I want it!  Well, I wished to
find out what kind of man he is, but I wasn't very successful.
Hildegarde," and he pressed his hand down hard over hers, "I could find
a priest the day we land if you would love me.  You will always
remember that."

"As if I could ever forget your kindness!  But you forced him; there is
no merit in such a confession.  And I wonder how you forced him.  It
was not by fear.  Much as I know him there are still some unfilled
pages.  I would call him a scoundrel did I not know that in parts he
has been a hero.  What sacrifices the man has made, and with what
patience!"

"To what end?" quietly.

"No, no, Arthur!  I have promised him."

He took her by the arm roughly.  "Let us make two or three rounds and
go back.  We shan't grow any more cheerful talking this way."

"He loves her.  I saw it in his eyes; and I must stand aside and watch!"

"So must I," he said.  "Aren't you just a little selfish, Hildegarde?"

"I am wretched, Arthur; and I am a fool, besides.  Oh, that I were
cold-blooded like your women, that I could eat out my heart in secret;
but I can't, I can't!"

"But you have courage; only use it.  If what you say of him is true,
rest easy.  She is not in his orbit.  She will not be impressed by an
adventurer of his breed."

"Thank you!" with a broken laugh.  "I am only an opera-singer, here on
suffrance."

"Oh, good Lord!  I did not mean it that way.  Let us finish the walk,"
savagely.

On the afternoon of the second day out, tea was served under the
awning, and Captain Flanagan condescended to leave his bridge for half
an hour.  Through a previous hint dropped by the admiral they lured the
captain into spinning yarns; and well-salted hair-breadth escapes they
were.  He understood that the admiral's guests always expected these
flights, and he was in nowise niggard.  An ordinary sailor would have
been dead these twenty years, under any one of the exploits.

"Marvelous!" said M. Ferraud from the depths of his rugs.  "And he
still lives to tell it?"

"It's the easiest thing in the world, sir, if y' know how," the captain
declared complacently.  Indeed, he had recounted these yarns so many
times that he was beginning to regard them as facts.  His statement,
ambiguous as it was, passed unchallenged, however; for not one had the
daring to inquire whether he referred to the telling or the living of
them.  So he believed that he was looked upon as an apostle of truth.
Only the admiral had the temerity to look his captain squarely in the
eye and wink.

"Captain, would you mind if I put these tales in a book?"  Fitzgerald
put this question with a seriousness which fooled no one but the
captain.

"You come up t' the bridge some afternoon, when we've got a smooth sea,
and I'll give y' some _real_ ones."  The captain's vanity was soothed,
but he was not aware that he had put doubt upon his own veracity.

"That's kind of you."

"An' say!" went on the captain, drinking his tea, not because he liked
it but because it was customary, "I've got a character forwards.  I'm
allus shippin' odds and ends.  Got a Frenchman; hands like a lady."

Breitmann leaned forward, and M. Ferraud sat up.

"Yessir," continued the captain; "speaks I-talyan an' English.  An' if
I ever meets a lady with long soft hands like his'n, I'm for a pert
talk, straightway."

"What's the matter with his hands?" asked the admiral.

"Why, Commodore, they're as soft as Miss Laura's here, an' yet when th'
big Swede who handles th' baggage was a-foolin' with him this mornin',
it was the Swede who begs off.  Nary a callous, an' yet he bowls the
big one round the deck like he was a liner being pierced by a sassy
tug.  An' what gets me is, he knows every bolt from stem to stern, sir,
an' an all-round good sailor int' th' bargain; an' it don' take me
more'n twelve hours t' find that out.  Well, I'm off t' th' bridge.
Good day, ladies."

When he was out of earshot the admiral roared.  "He's the dearest old
liar since Münchhausen."

"Aren't they true stories?" asked Hildegarde.

"Bless you, no!  And he knows we know it, too.  But he tells them so
well that I've never had the courage to sheer him off."

"It's amusing," said Laura; "but I do not think that it's always fair
to him."

"Why, Laura, you're as good a listener as any I know.  Read him a
tract, if you wish."

Breitmann rose presently and sauntered forward, while M. Ferraud
snuggled down in his rugs again.  The others entered into a game of
deck-cricket.

But M. Ferraud was not so ill that he was unable to steal from his
cabin at half after nine, at night, without even the steward being
aware of his departure.  It can not be said that he roamed about the
deck, for whenever he moved it was in the shadow, and always forward.
By and by voices drifted down the wind.  One he knew and expected,
Breitmann's; of the other he was not sure, though the French he spoke
was of classic smoothness.  M. Ferraud was exceedingly interested.  He
had been waiting for this meeting.  Only a phrase or two could be heard
distinctly.  But words were not necessary.  What he desired above all
things was a glimpse of this Frenchman's face.  After several minutes
Breitmann went aft.  M. Ferraud stepped out cautiously, and luck was
with him.  The sailor to whom Breitmann had spoken so earnestly was
lolling against the rail, in the act of lighting a cigarette.  The
light from the match was feeble, but it sufficed the keen eyes of the
watcher.  He gasped a little.  Strong hands indeed!  Here in the garb
of a common sailor, was one of the foremost Orleanists in France!

CHAPTER XVII

A QUESTION FROM KEATS

Breitmann and the admiral usually worked from ten till luncheon, unless
it was too stormy; and then the admiral took the day off.  The business
under hand was of no great moment; it was rather an outlet for the
admiral's energy, and gave him something to look forward to as each day
came round.  Many a morning he longed for the quarter-deck of his old
battle-ship; the trig crew and marines lined up for inspection; the
revelries of the foreign ports; the great manoeuvres; the target
practice.  Never would his old heart swell again under the full-dress
uniform nor his eyes sparkle under the plume of his rank.  He was
retired on half-pay.  Only a few close friends knew how his half-pay
was invested.  There remained perhaps ten of the old war-crew, and
among them every Christmas the admiral's half-pay was divided.  This
and his daughter were the two unalloyed joys of his life.

Since his country had no further use for him, and as it was as
necessary as air to his lungs that he tread the deck of a ship, he had
purchased the _Laura_; and, when he was not stirring up the bones of
dead pirates, he was at Cowes or at Brest or at Keil or on the Hudson,
wherever the big fellows indulged in mimic warfare.

"That will be all this morning, Mr. Breitmann," he said, rising and
looking out of the port-hole.

"Very well, sir.  I believe that by the time we make Corsica we shall
have the book ready for the printers.  It is very interesting."

"Much obliged.  You have been a good aid.  As you know, I am writing
this rubbish only because it is play and passable mental exercise."

"I do not agree with you there," returned the secretary, with his
pleasant smile.  "The book will be really a treasure of itself.  It is
far more interesting than any romance."

The admiral shook his head dubiously.

"No, no," Breitmann averred.  "There is no flattery in what I say.
Flattery was not in our agreement.  And," with a slight lift of the
jaw, "I never say what I do not honestly mean.  It will be a good book,
and I am proud to have had a hand, however light, in the making."

The admiral chuckled.  "That is the kind of flattery no man may shut
his ears to.  It has been a great pleasure to me; it has kept me
out-of-doors, in the open, where I belong.  Come in, Laura, come in."

The girl stood framed in the low doorway, a charming picture to the old
man and a lovely one to the secretary.  She balanced herself with a
hand on each side of the jam.

"Father, how can you work when the sun is so beautiful outside?  Good
morning, Mr. Breitmann," cordially.

"Good morning."

"Work is over, Laura.  Come in."  The admiral reached forth an arm and
caught her, drawing her gently in and finally to his breast.

Breitmann would have given an eye for that right.  The picture set his
nerves twitching.

"I am not in the way?"

"Not at all," answered the secretary.  "I was just leaving."  And with
good foresight he passed out.

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever," murmured the admiral.

"Fudge!" and she laughed.

"We are having a fine voyage."

"Splendid!  Why is it that I am always happy?"

"It is because you do not depend upon others for it, my dear.  I am
happy, too.  I am as happy as a boy with his first boat.  But never has
a ship gone slower than this one of mine.  I am simply crazy to drop
anchor in the Gulf of Ajaccio.  I find it on the tip of my tongue,
every night at dinner, to tell the others where we are bound."

"Why not?  Where's the harm now?"

"I don't know, but something keeps it back.  Laura," looking into her
eyes, "did we ever cruise with brighter men on board?"

"What is it you wish to know, father?" merrily.  "You dear old sailor,
don't you understand that these men are different?  They are men who
accomplish things; they haven't time to bother about young women."

"You don't say!" pinching the ear nearest.

"This is the seventh day out, and not one of them has ceased to be
interesting yet."

"Would they cease to be interesting if they proposed?" quizzing.

These two had no unshared secrets.  They were sure of each other.  He
knew that when this child of his divided her affection with another
man, that man would be deserving.

"I would rather have them all as they are.  They make fine comrades."

He sighed thankfully.  "Arthur seems to be out of the race."

"Rather say I am!" with laughter.  "Why, a child could read Arthur
Cathewe's face when he looks at her.  Isn't she simply beautiful?"

"Very.  But there are types and types."

"Am I really pretty?"  Sometimes she grew shy under her father's open
admiration.  She was afraid it was his love rather than his judgment
that made her beautiful in his eyes.

"My child, there's more than one man who will agree with me when I say
that there is no one to compare with you.  You are the living quotation
from Keats."

"I shall kiss you for that."  And straightway she did.

"What do you think of Mr. Breitmann?" soberly.

"He is charming sometimes; but he has a little too much reserve.
Doubtless he sees his position too keenly.  He should not."

"Do you like him?"

"Yes," frankly.

"So do I; and yet there are moments when I do not."  The admiral filled
his pipe carefully.

"But your reason?" surprised.

"That's just the trouble.  I haven't any tangible reason.  The doubt
exists, and I can't explain it.  The sea often looks smooth and mild,
and the sky is cloudless; yet an old sailor will suddenly grow
suspicious; he will see a storm, a heavy blow.  And why, he couldn't
say for the life of him.  Flanagan will tell you."

The girl grew studious and grave.  Had there not been an echo of this
doubt in her own mind?  Immediately she smiled.

"We are talking nonsense and wasting the sunshine."

"How about Fitzgerald?"

"Oh, he's the most sensible of them all.  He proposed to me the first
night out."

"What?"  The admiral dropped his pipe.

"Not so loud!" she warned.  And then the clear music of her laughter
penetrated beyond the cabin; and Fitzgerald, wandering about without
purpose, heard it and paused.

"You minx!" growled the admiral; "to scare your old father like that!"

"Dearest, weren't you fishing to be scared?"

"Let's get out into the sunshine.  I never could get the best of you.
But you really don't mean--"

"I really do not.  He's too busy telling me the plot of this novel he
is going to write to make love to a girl who doesn't want more than one
man in the family, and that's her foolish old father."

And they went outside, arm in arm, laughing together like the good
comrades they were.  M. Ferraud joined them.

"I wish," said he, "that I was a poet."

"What would you do?" she asked.

"I should write a sonnet to your eyebrows this morning, is it not?"

"Mercy, no!  That kind of poetry has long been _passé_."

"_Helas_!" mournfully.

It was a beautiful morning, a sharp blue sky and a sea of running
silver; warm, too, for they were bearing away into the southern seas
now.  Every one had sea-legs by this time, and the larder dwindled in a
respectable manner.

Fitzgerald viewed his case dispassionately.  But what to do?  A
thousand times he had argued out the question, with a single result,
that he was a fool for his pains.  He became possessed with sudden
inexplicable longings for land.  He could not get away from this yacht;
on land there would have been a hundred straight lines to the woods and
the fisherman's philosophy.  Things were going directly to one end, and
presently he would have no more power to stem the words.  At least one
thing was certain, the admiral could not drop him overboard.

"The villain?"

He was moved suddenly out of his dream, for the object of it stood
smiling at his side.  A wisp of hair was blowing across her eyes and
she was endeavoring to adjust it under her cap.

"The villain?" making a fine effort to remarshal his thoughts.

"Yes.  We were talking about him last night.  Where did you leave him?"

"He was still pursuing, I believe."

"Why don't you make him a real villain, a man who never kills any one,
but who makes every one unhappy?"

"But that's a problem-villain; what we must have is a romance-villain,
the kind every one is sorry for.  Look at that old Portuguese
man-o'-war," pointing to the crest of a near-by wave.  "Funny little
codger!"

"When do you expect to begin the story on paper?"

"When I have _all_ the material," not afraid of her eyes at that moment.

She propped her elbows on the rail.  It was a seductive pose, and came
very near being the young man's undoing.

"Does it seem impossible to you," she said, "that in these prosaic
times we are treasure hunting?  Must we not wake up and find it a
dream?"

"Most dreams are perishable, but in this case we have the dream tightly
bound.  But what are we going to do with all this money when we find
it?"

"Divide it or start a soldiers' home.  I've never thought of it as
money."

"Heaven knows, I have!"

"Why?"

"Do you really wish to know?" in a voice new to her ear.  "Do you wish
to know why I want money, lots and lots of it?"

She dropped her arms and turned.  The tone agitated and alarmed her
strangely.  "Why, yes.  With plenty of money you could devote all your
time to writing; and I am sure you could write splendid stories."

"That was not my exact thought," he replied, resolutely pulling himself
together.  "But it will serve."  By George! he thought, that was close
enough.

She did not ask him what his exact thought was, but she suspected it.
There was a little shock of pleasure and disappointment; the one rising
from the fact that he had stopped where he did and the other that he
had not gone on.  And she grew angry over this second expression.  She
liked him; she had never met a young man whom she liked more.  But
liking is never loving, and her heart was as free and unburdened as the
wind.  As once remarked, many of the men with whom she had come into
contact had been bred in idleness, and her interest in them had never
gone above friendly tolerance.  Her admiration was for men, young or
old, who cut their way roughly through the world's great obstacles, who
achieved things in pioneering, in history, in science; and she admired
them because they were rather difficult to draw out, being more
familiar with startling journeys, wildernesses, strange peoples, than
with the gilded metaphors of the drawing-room.

And here were three of them to meet daily, to study and to ponder over.
And types as far apart as the three points of a triangle; the man at
her side, young, witty, agreeable; Cathewe, grave, kindly, and
sometimes rather saturnine; Breitmann, proud and reserved; and each of
them having rung true in some great crisis.  If ever she loved a
man . . .  The thought remained unfinished and she glanced up and met
Fitzgerald's eyes.  They were sad, with the line of a frown above them.
How was she to keep him under hand, and still erect an impassable
barrier!  It was the first time she had given the matter serious
thought.  The joy of the sea underfoot, the tang of the rushing air,
the journey's end, these had occupied her volatile young mind.  But now!

"I am dull," said he gloomily.

"Thank you!"

"I mean that I am stupid, doubly stupid," he corrected.

"Cricket will be a cure for that."

"I doubt it," approaching dangerous ground once more.

"Let's go and talk to Captain Flanagan, then."

"There!" with sudden spirit, "the very thing I've been wanting!"'

It was of no importance that they both knew this to be a prevarication
about which St. Peter would not trouble his hoary head nor take the
pains to indite in his great book of demerits.

But all through that bright day the girl thought, and there were times
when the others had to speak to her twice; not at all a reassuring sign.

CHAPTER XVIII

CATHEWE ADVISES AND THE ADMIRAL DISCLOSES

One day they dropped anchor in the sapphire bay of Funchal, in the
summer calm, hot and glaring; Funchal, with its dense tropical growth,
its cloud-wreathed mountains, its amethystine sisters in the faded
southeast.  And for two days, while Captain Flanagan recoaled, they
played like children, jolting round in the low bullock-carts, climbing
the mountains or bumping down the corduroy road.  It was the strangest
treasure hunt that ever left a home port.  It was more like a page out
of a boy's frolic than a sober quest by grown-ups.  That danger, menace
and death hid in covert would have appealed to them (those who knew) as
ridiculous, impossible, obsolete.  The story of cutlass and pistol and
highboots had been molding in archives these eighty-odd years.
Dangers?  From whom, from what direction?  No one suggested the
possibility, even in jest; and the only man who could have advanced,
with reasonable assurance, that danger, real and serious, existed, was
too busy apparently with his butterfly-net.  Still, he had not yet been
consulted; he was not supposed to know that this cruise was weighted
with something more than pleasure.

Fitzgerald waited with an impatience which often choked him.  A secret
agent had not so adroitly joined this expedition for the pleasure of
seeing a treasure dug up from some reluctant grave.  What was he after?
If indeed Breitmann was directly concerned, if he knew of the
treasure's existence, of what benefit now would be his knowledge?  A
share in the finding at most.  And was Breitmann one who was
conditioned of such easy stuff that he would rather be sure and share
than to strike out for all the treasure and all the risks?  The more he
gave his thought to Breitmann the more that gentleman retracted into
the fog, as it were.  On several occasions he had noticed signs of a
preoccupation, of suppressed excitement, of silence and moroseness.
Fitzgerald could join certain squares of the puzzle, but this led
forward scarce a step.  Breitmann had entered the employ of the admiral
for the very purpose for which M. Ferraud had journeyed sundrily into
the cellar and beaten futilely on the chimney.  It resolved to one
thing, and that was the secretary had arrived too late.  He was sure
that Breitmann had no suspicion regarding M. Ferraud.  But for a casual
glance at the little man's hands, neither would he have had any.  He
determined to prod M. Ferraud.  He was well trained in repression; so,
while he often lost patience, there was never any external sign of it.
Besides, there was another affair which over-shadowed it and at times
engulfed it.

Love.  The cross-tides of sense and sentiment made a pretty
disturbance.  And still further, there was another counter-tide.  Love
does not necessarily make a young man keen-sighted, but it generally
highly develops his talent for suspicion.  By subtle gradations,
Breitmann had shifted in Fitzgerald's mind from a possible friend to a
probable rival.  Breitmann did not now court his society when the
smoking bouts came round, or when the steward brought the whisky and
soda after the ladies had retired.  Breitmann was moody, and whatever
variance his moods had, they retained the gray tone.  This Fitzgerald
saw and dilated upon; and it rankled when he thought that this
hypothetical adventurer had rights, level and equal to his, always
supposing he had any.

In this state of mind he drooped idly over the rail as the yacht drew
out of the bay, the evening of the second day.  The glories of the
southern sunset lingered and vanished, a-begging, without his senses
being roused by them; and long after the sea, chameleon-like, changed
from rose to lavender, from lavender to gray, the mountains yet
jealously clung to their vivid aureolas of phantom gold.  Fitzgerald
saw nothing but writing on the water.

"Well, my boy," said Cathewe, lounging affectionately against
Fitzgerald, "here we are, rolled over again."

"What?"

Cathewe described a circle with his finger lazily.

"Oh!" said Fitzgerald, listless.  "Another day more or less, crowded
into the past, doesn't matter."

"Maybe.  If we could only have the full days and deposit the others and
draw as we need them; but we can't do it.  And yet each day means
something; there ought always to be a little of it worth remembering."

"Old parson!" cried Fitzgerald, with a jab of his elbow.

"All bally rot, eh?  I wish I could look at it that way.  Yet, when a
man mopes as you are doing, when this sunset. . ."

"New one every day."

"What's the difficulty, Jack?"

"Am I walking around with a sign on my back?" testily.

"Of a kind, yes."

Cathewe spoke so solemnly that Fitzgerald looked round, and saw that