ated in the direction of the object that frightened me.

There it rose against the seaward cliffs, the little tower of Trecourt
farm, sea-smitten and crusted, wind-worn, stained, gray as the
lichened rocks scattered across the moorland. Over it the white gulls
pitched and tossed in a windy sky; beyond crawled the ancient and
wrinkled sea.

"It is a strange thing," I said aloud, "to find love at the world's
edge." I looked blindly across the gray waste. "But I have found it
too late."

The wind blew furiously; I heard the gulls squealing in the sky, the
far thunder of the surf.

Then, looking seaward again, for the first time I noticed that the
black cruiser was gone, that nothing now lay between the cliffs and
the hazy headland of Groix save a sheet of lonely water spreading
league on league to meet a flat, gray sky.

Why had the cruiser sailed? As I stood there, brooding, to my numbed
ears the moor-winds bore a sound coming from a great distance--the
sound of cannon--little, soft reports, all but inaudible in the wind
and the humming undertone of the breakers. Yet I knew the sound, and
turned my unquiet eyes to the sea, where nothing moved save the far
crests of waves.

For a while I stood listening, searching the sea, until a voice hailed
me, and I turned to find Kelly Eyre almost at my elbow.

"There is a man in the village haranguing the people," he said,
abruptly. "We thought you ought to know."

"A man haranguing the people," I repeated. "What of it?"

"Speed thinks the man is Buckhurst."

"What!" I cried.

"There's something else, too," he said, soberly, and drew a telegram
from his pocket.

I seized it, and studied the fluttering sheet:

"The governor of Lorient, on complaint of the mayor of
Paradise, forbids the American exhibition, and orders
the individual Byram to travel immediately to Lorient
with his so-called circus, where a British steamship
will transport the personnel, baggage, and animals to
British territory. The mayor of Paradise will see that
this order of expulsion is promptly executed.

"(Signed) Breteuil.
"Chief of Police."

"Where did you get that telegram?" I asked.

"It's a copy; the mayor came with it. Byram does not know about it."

"Don't let him know it!" I said, quickly; "this thing will kill him,
I believe. Where is that fool of a mayor? Come o