rcus Stepney as he assisted her up
the beach. "Do you think it was soldiers practising?"

She shook her head.

"Oh," said Mr. Stepney thoughtfully, and then: "If you don't mind, I'll
run up and see what has happened."

He wrapped himself in the dressing gown he had brought with him, and
followed Jean's trail, coming up with her as Mr. Briggerland opened his
eyes and stared round.

"Help me to hold him, Marcus," said Jean.

"Wait a moment," said Mr. Stepney, feeling in his pocket and producing a
silk handkerchief, "bandage him with that."

She shook her head.

"He's lost all the blood he's going to lose," she said quietly, "and I
don't think there's a fracture. I felt the skull very carefully with my
finger."

Mr. Stepney shivered.

"Hullo," said Briggerland drowsily, "Gee, he gave me a whack!"

"Who did it?" asked the girl.

Mr. Briggerland shook his head and winced with the pain of it.

"I don't know," he moaned. "Help me up. Stepney."

With the man's assistance he rose unsteadily to his feet.

"What happened?" asked Stepney.

"Don't ask him any questions now," said the girl sharply. "Help him back
to the house."

A doctor was summoned and stitched the wound. He gave an encouraging
report, and was not too inquisitive as to how the injury had occurred.
Foreign visitors get extraordinary things in the regions of Monte Carlo,
and medical men lose nothing by their discretion.

It was not until that afternoon, propped up with pillows in a chair,
the centre of a sympathetic audience, that Mr. Briggerland told his
story.

"I had a feeling that something was wrong," he said, "and I went up to
investigate. I heard a shot fired, almost within a few yards of me, and
dashing through the bushes, I saw the fellow taking aim for the second
time, and seized him. You remember the second shot went high."

"What sort of a man was he?" asked Stepney.

"He was an Italian, I should think," answered Mr. Briggerland. "At any
rate, he caught me an awful whack with the back of his rifle, and I knew
no more until Jean found me."

"Do you think he was firing at me?" asked Lydia in horror.

"I am certain of it," said Briggerland. "I realised it the moment I saw
the fellow."

"How am I to thank you?" said the girl impulsively. "Really, it was
wonderful of you to tackle an armed man with your bare hands."

Mr. Briggerland closed his eyes and sighed.

"It was nothing," he said modestly.

Before dinner he and his dau