r Fal a splendid ship, on the building of which
the most cunning engineers had been employed and no money spared, rode
proudly at anchor just off Smithick under the very shadow of the heights
crowned by the fine house of Arwenack. She was fitting out for a distant
voyage and for days the work of bringing stores and munitions aboard had
been in progress, so that there was an unwonted bustle about the little
forge and the huddle of cottages that went to make up the fishing
village, as if in earnest of the great traffic that in future days was
to be seen about that spot. For Sir John Killigrew seemed at last to be
on the eve of prevailing and of laying there the foundations of the fine
port of his dreams.

To this state of things his friendship with Master Lionel Tressilian
had contributed not a little. The opposition made to his project by Sir
Oliver--and supported, largely at Sir Oliver's suggestion, by Truro and
Helston--had been entirely withdrawn by Lionel; more, indeed Lionel had
actually gone so far in the opposite direction as to support Sir John in
his representations to Parliament and the Queen. It followed naturally
enough that just as Sir Oliver's opposition of that cherished project
had been the seed of the hostility between Arwenack and Penarrow, so
Lionel's support of it became the root of the staunch friendship that
sprang up between himself and Sir John.

What Lionel lacked of his brother's keen intelligence he made up for in
cunning. He realized that although at some future time it was possible
that Helston and Truro and the Tressilian property there might come
to suffer as a consequence of the development of a port so much more
advantageously situated, yet that could not be in his own lifetime;
and meanwhile he must earn in return Sir John's support for his suit of
Rosamund Godolphin and thus find the Godolphin estates merged with his
own. This certain immediate gain was to Master Lionel well worth the
other future possible loss.

It must not, however, be supposed that Lionel's courtship had
thenceforward run a smooth and easy course. The mistress of Godolphin
Court showed him no favour and it was mainly that she might abstract
herself from the importunities of his suit that she had sought and
obtained Sir John Killigrew's permission to accompany the latter's
sister to France when she went there with her husband, who was appointed
English ambassador to the Louvre. Sir John's authority as her guardian