crept
into the bosom of the sea." From the cross-trees the look-out man had
already been able to distinguish through the glass the faint distant
glimmer of Scarthey beacon, when Captain Jack knocked for admittance
at Lady Landale's cabin for the last time, as he thought, with a sigh
of relief.

"In the course of an hour, Madam," he said in a grave tone, "I hope to
restore you to land. As for me, I shall have again to hide in the
peel, though I hope it will not be for long. My fate--and by my fate I
mean not only my safety, but my honour, which, as you know, is now
bound up in the safety of the treasures--will be in your hands. For I
must wait at Scarthey till I can see Adrian again, and upon your
return to Pulwick I must beg you to be the bearer of a message to ask
him to come and see me."

She replied in a voice that trembled a little:

"I will not fail you."

But her great eyes, dark circled, fixed upon him with a meek,
sorrowful look, spoke dumbly the troublous tale of her mind. In her
subdued mood the likeness to Madeleine was more obtrusive than it had
ever yet been. He contemplated her with melancholy, and drew a heavy
sigh.

Molly groaned in the depths of her soul, though her lips tight set
betrayed no sound. Oh, miserable chaos of the human world, that such
pent up love should be wasted--wasted; that they, too, young and
strong and beautiful, alone together, so near, with such glorious
happiness within their reach, should yet be so perversely far asunder!

There was a long silence. They looked into each other's eyes; but he
was unseeing; his mind was far away, dwelling upon the memory of that
last meeting with his love under the fir trees of Pulwick only ten
days ago, but now as irrevocably far as things seem that may never
again be. At length, she made a movement which brought him back to
present reality--a movement of her wounded arm as if of pain. And he
came back to Lady Landale, worn with the fatigue of these long days in
the cramped discomfort of a schooner cabin, thinned by pain and
fevered thinkings, shorn of all that daintiness of appearance which
can only be maintained in the midst of luxury, and yet, by the light
of the flickering lamp, more triumphantly beautiful than ever.

His thoughts leaped to his friend with a pang of remorse.

"You are suffering--you are ill," he said. "Thus do I bring you back
to him who last saw you so full of strength.... But you will recover
at Pulwick."

"Suff