ortune.
The Marquis de Gemosac had been told that affairs might yet be arranged.
He was no financier, however, he admitted; he did not understand such
matters, and all that he knew was that the promised help from the
Englishwoman was not forthcoming.

"It is," he concluded, "a question of looking elsewhere. It is not only
that we want money. It is that we must have it at once."

It was not, strictly speaking, Loo's part to think of or to administer
the money. His was the part to be played by Kings--so easy, if the gift
is there, so impossible to acquire if it be lacking--to know many people
and to charm them all. Thus the summer ripened into autumn. It had been
another great vintage in the south, and Bordeaux was more than usually
busy when Barebone arrived there, at daybreak, one morning in November,
having posted from Toulouse. He was more daring in winter, and went
fearlessly through the streets. In cold weather it is so much easier for
a man to conceal his identity; for a woman to hide her beauty, if she
wish to--which is a large If. Barebone could wear a fur collar and turn
it up round that tell-tale chin, which made the passer-by pause and turn
to look at him again if it was visible.

He breakfasted at the old-fashioned inn in the heart of the town, where
to this day the diligences deposit their passengers, and then he made
his way to the quay, from whence he would take passage down the river.
It was a cold morning, and there are few colder cities, south of Paris,
than Bordeaux. Barebone hurried, his breath frozen on the fur of his
collar. Suddenly he stopped. His new self--that phantom second-nature
bred of custom--vanished in the twinkling of an eye, and left him plain
Loo Barebone, of Farlingford, staring across the green water toward "The
Last Hope," deep-laden, anchored in mid-stream.

Seeing him stop, a boatman ran toward him from a neighbouring flight of
steps.

"An English ship, monsieur," he said; "just come in. Her anchors are
hardly home. Does monsieur wish to go on board?"

"Of course I do, comrade--as quick as you like," he answered, with a gay
laugh. It was odd that the sight of this structure, made of human hands,
should change him in a flash of thought, should make his heart leap in
his breast.

In a few minutes he was seated in the wherry, half way out across the
stream. Already a face was looking over the bulwarks. The hands were on
the forecastle, still busy clearing decks after the conf