materials, and both of us (for, as has been
suggested, I had a slight gift for drawing) made sketches of the
burial-place. Having done this, we moved away to other parts of the
cemetery, looking at the tombstones, many of which told sad tales enough
of those who died far away from home and friends. As we wandered on, I
noticed a woman kneeling beside a grave. It grew upon me that the figure
was familiar. Presently I saw who it was, for the face lifted. I excused
myself, went over to her, and said:--"Miss Caron, you are in trouble?"

She looked up, her eyes swimming with tears and pointed to the
tombstone. On it I read:

Sacred to the Memory of
HECTOR CARON,
Ensign in the French Navy.

Erected by his friend, Galt Roscoe,
H.B.M.N.

Beneath this was the simple line:

"Why, what evil hath he done?"

"He was your brother?" I asked.

"Yes, monsieur, my one brother." Her tears dropped slowly.

"And Galt Roscoe, who was he?" asked I.

Through her grief her face was eloquent. "I never saw him--never knew
him," she said. "He saved my poor Hector from much suffering; he nursed
him, and buried him here when he died, and then--that!" pointing to the
tombstone. "He made me love the English," she said. "Some day I shall
find him, and I shall have money to pay him back all he spent--all." Now
I guessed the meaning of the scene on board the 'Fulvia', when she had
been so anxious to preserve her present relations with Mrs. Falchion.
This was the secret--a beautiful one. She rose. "They disgraced Hector
in New Caledonia," she said, "because he refused to punish a convict
at Ile Nou who did not deserve it. He determined to go to France to
represent his case. He left me behind, because we were poor. He went to
Sydney. There he came to know this good man,"--her finger gently felt
his name upon the stone,--"who made him a guest upon his ship; and so he
came on towards England. In the Indian Ocean he was taken ill: and this
was the end."

She mournfully sank again beside the grave, but she was no longer
weeping.

"What was this officer's vessel?" I said presently. She drew from her
dress a letter. "It is here. Please read it all. He wrote that to me
when Hector died."

The superscription to the letter was--H.B.M.S. Porcupine.

I might have told her then that the 'Porcupine' was in the harbour
at Aden, but I felt that things would work out to due ends w