y ship, the ship of which I am--I have been--an officer, lying at
anchor in the river near here, off the village of Mortagne. I came from
Mortagne at your father's request, with certain messages, for yourself,
mademoiselle, and for Marie--if Madame is Marie."

"Yes," replied the grim voice in the doorway. "Madame is Marie."

Loo had turned toward her. It seemed his happy fate to be able to disarm
antagonism at the first pass. He looked at Marie and smiled; and slowly,
unwillingly, her grim face relaxed.

"Well," he said, "you are not to expect Monsieur le Marquis to-night,
nor yet, for some time to come. For he will go on to Bordeaux, where
he can obtain skilled treatment for his injured ankle, and remain there
until he can put his foot to the ground. He is comfortable enough on
board the ship, which will proceed up the river to-morrow morning to
Bordeaux. Monsieur le Marquis also told me to set your mind at rest on
another point. He was to have brought with him a guest--"

Loo paused and bowed to Marie, with a gay grace.

"A humble one. But I am not to come to Gemosac just now. I am going,
instead, with Monsieur Dormer Colville, to stay at Royan with Mrs.
St. Pierre Lawrence. It is, I hope, a pleasure deferred. I cannot,
it appears, show myself in Bordeaux at present, and I quit the ship
to-night. It is some question of myself and my heritage in France, which
I do not understand."

"Is that so?" said Marie. "One can hardly believe it."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing," replied Marie, looking at his face with a close scrutiny,
as if it were familiar to her.

"And that is all that I had to tell you, Madame Marie," concluded
Barebone.

And, strangely enough, Marie smiled at him as he turned away, not
unkindly.

"To you, mademoiselle," he went on, turning again to Juliette, whose
hand was at her hair, for she had been taken by surprise, "my message
is simpler. Monsieur, your father, will be glad to have your society at
Bordeaux, while he stays there, if that is true which the Gironde
pilot told him--of fever at Saintes, and the hurried dispersal of the
schools."

"It is true enough, monsieur," answered Juliette, in her low-pitched
voice of the south, and with a light of anticipation in her eye; for it
was dull enough at Gemosac, all alone in this empty chateau. "But how am
I to reach Bordeaux?"

"Your father did not specify the route or method. He seemed to leave
that to you, mademoiselle. He seemed to