vent-bred girl! I would have you to go home, my dear, and leave me
to deal with this--gentleman. You have bitter truths to learn; would
it not be better to wait and learn them quietly without further
scandal?"

This was too much for Captain Jack, who fairly ground his teeth.
Rupert's honeyed tones, his grasp of Madeleine's hand were more
unbearable even than the words. He advanced upon the elder man and
seizing him by the collar whirled him away from the girl as easily as
a straw puppet.

The fine gentleman of sensitive nerves and unworked sinews had no
chance against the iron strength of the man who had passed all the
years of virility fighting against sea and storm. The two faced each
other; Jack Smith, red and panting with honest rage, only the sense of
his lady's proximity keeping him from carrying his high-handed
measures a little further. Mr. Landale, livid, with eyes suddenly
black in their orbits, moistening his white lips while he quivered
from head to foot with a passion so tense that not even his worst
enemy could have attributed it to fear.

An unequal match it would seem, yet unequal in a way that the young
man, in the conscious glory of his strength could not have conceived.
Madeleine neither screamed nor fainted; she had grown white, in
natural apprehension, but her eyes fixed upon her lover's face shone
with admiration. Mr. Landale turned slowly towards her.

"Madeleine," he said, readjusting his stock and smoothing the folds of
his collar with a steadfast striving after coolness, "you have been
grossly deceived. The man you would trust with your life and honour is
a mere smuggler. He has no doubt told you fine stories, but if he has
given himself out for aught else he lied, take my word for it--he
lied. He is a common smuggler, and the vessel he would carry you away
in is packed with smuggled goods. To-day he has attacked and wounded
an officer, who, in the discharge of his duty, endeavoured to find out
the nature of his suspicious purpose. Your would-be lover's neck is in
danger. A felon, he runs the risk of his life every moment he remains
on land--but he would make a last effort to secure the heiress! Look
at him," his voice raising in spite of himself to a shriller
pitch--"he cannot deny it!"

Madeleine gazed from one to the other. Her mind, never a very quick
one at decision, was too bewildered to act with clearness; moreover
with her education and ignorance of the world the indictment convey