at him. A great change had
come over her face. It was fixed and rigid and haggard--her eyes had
something in them that was awful. Her lips were white--her face was
ashen. She tried to speak, but at first no sound escaped. At last she
spoke in a hoarse voice utterly unlike her own.

"_She_ is gone, then."

"_For evermore_!" said Gualtier.

Hilda turned her stony face once more toward the sea, while Gualtier
looked all around, and then turned his gaze back to this woman for
whom he had done so much.

"After a while"--he began once more, in a slow, dull voice--"the wind
came up, and we hoisted sail. We went on our way rapidly, and by the
middle of the following day we arrived at Leghorn. I paid the men off
and dismissed them. I myself came back to London immediately, over
the Alps, through Germany. I thought it best to avoid Marseilles. I
do not know what the men did with themselves; but I think that they
would have made some trouble for me if I had not hurried away. Black
Bill said as much when I was paying them. He said that when he made
the bargain he thought it was only some 'bloody insurance business,'
and, if he had known what it was to have been, he would have made a
different bargain. As it was, he swore I ought to double the amount I
had promised. I refused, and we parted with some high words--he
vowing vengeance, and I saying nothing."

[Illustration: "Black Bill Has Kept On My Track."]

"Ah!" said Hilda, who had succeeded in recovering something of her
ordinary calm, "that was foolish in you--you ought to have satisfied
their demands."

"I have thought so since."

"They may create trouble. You should have stopped their mouths."

"That is the very thing I wished to do; but I was afraid of being too
lavish, for fear that they would suspect the importance of the thing.
I thought if I appeared mean and stingy and poor they might conclude
that I was some very ordinary person, and that the affair was of a
very ordinary kind--concerning very common people. If they suspected
the true nature of the case they would be sure to inform the police.
As it is, they will hold their tongues; or, at the worst, they will
try and track me."

"Track you?" said Hilda, who was struck by something in Gualtier's
tone.

"Yes; the fact is--I suppose I ought to tell you--I have been tracked
all the way from Leghorn."

"By whom?"

"Black Bill--I don't know how he managed it, but he has certainly
kept on my track. I sa