e guerre_--too palpably a name chosen by
an unimaginative man. I should sail under your own colours if I were
you."

"Good! Then John Hazel I am, and so will remain. As a guarantee of good
faith, I promise you not to touch a card all the way across."

"A good resolution; see that you keep it." And thus they enjoyed an
appetising lunch together, and were regaled with one of the doctor's
best salads.

They got away from Cherbourg before the dinner hour, and after that meal
Stranleigh and Hazel walked together on the main deck, until the latter,
admitting he was rather fagged after the exciting events of the day,
went off to his cabin, and Stranleigh was left alone to smoke a final
cigar. He leaned on the rail and gazed meditatively at the smooth sea.

It was an ideal evening, and Stranleigh felt at peace with all the
world. There exists a popular belief that the rich are overburdened with
care. This may be true while they are in the money-making struggle, but
it is not a usual fault when the cash is in the bank or safely invested.
Stranleigh occasionally lost money, but an immense amount had been
bequeathed him, and he made many millions more than he had parted with,
although he claimed this was merely because of a series of flukes,
maintaining that, whenever he set to work that part of him known as his
brains, he invariably came a cropper.

"You are Mr. Trevelyan, are you not?" said a very musical feminine voice
at his elbow. Stranleigh turned in surprise, and seeing there a most
charming young woman, he flung his partially consumed cigar into the
sea.

"Yes," he replied, "my name is Trevelyan. How did you know?"

That rare smile came to his lips--a smile, people said, which made you
feel instinctively you could trust him; and many ladies who were quite
willing to bestow their trust, called it fascinating.

"I am afraid," said the girl, whose beautiful face was very serious, and
whose large dark eyes seemed troubled--"I am afraid that I enacted the
part of unintentional eavesdropper. I had some business with the
purser--business that I rather shrank from executing. You came to his
window just before I did, for I was hesitating."

"I am sorry," said Stranleigh, "if I obtruded myself between you and
that official. Being rather limited in intelligence, my mind can attend
to only one thing at a time, and I must confess I did not see you."

"I know you did not," retorted the girl. "There was no obtrusion. You
were