out to go, Miss
Ross, with whom I had grown quite confidential, walked with me to the
outer door.

'Friend Masters,' she said gently, 'I wish thee could tell me
something about young Mr. Lossing. The words flung out by Monsieur
Voisin were malicious words, and meant to do harm. But are they not
partly true? June is a proud girl, but I am sure she feels this
reserve of his, and he is reserved. I love the lad; he seems the soul
of truth. But there is a strangeness, a part that is untold. My
friend, you whom we call upon for everything, can you not make
straight this crooked place, too?'

She put out her hand and smiled upon me, but her gentle voice was full
of appeal; and I took the hand and held it between my own while I
answered:

'I believe I can do it, Miss Ross; and I surely will try, and that at
once. It shall not be all suspense.'

CHAPTER XXXI.

SIR CARROLL RAE.

I was tired with thinking and planning and loss of sleep, and that
night I led Lossing away, an easy captive, to the gondola station by
the Art Gallery. He had been in low spirits all day, and had not
presented himself at Washington Avenue since I had told him of
Voisin's visit there, which I did, word for word, just as Miss Ross
had related it to me, and with a purpose.

He was a reserved fellow, and I quite agreed with Miss Ross it was
time for him to throw off his reserve; so, after I had assured myself
that our gondoliers had made no choice collection of 'pidgin English,'
I began to talk, first of Voisin and then of June Jenrys. Suddenly I
turned toward him.

'Lossing, pardon the question, but have you ever known Voisin previous
to your meeting in New York?'

'I?' abstractedly. 'W--why, Masters?'

'Well, it might easily have been, you know. A man meets so many when
he travels much.'

'Oh!' with a short laugh; 'and I, you fancy, have travelled much?'

'Why, Lossing, the fact in your case is evident--in your manner,
speech, everything.' And I went back to Voisin, and his audacity in
addressing Miss Jenrys, finishing by calling him a 'fortune-hunting
adventurer.'

Lossing pulled off his cap, and perching it upon his knee, turned his
fair head to look up and down the water-way, and then faced me
squarely.

'Masters, that's precisely what the fellow called me.'

'Nonsense!' I said sharply.

'And isn't it true?'

'Not in my eyes.'

He was silent for a time, then:

'Masters,' he began, 'I've been on the point of opening m