I'll square
everybody. You lie low till they put us ashore! After that--do you think
you can--trust me?"

He spoke with comically twisted eyebrows and a smile half-kindly and
half-quizzical. And the forlorn little creature in his arms turned with a
swooping, passionate movement, caught one of his hands and pressed it to
quivering lips.

"I'll live--or die--for your sake!" the trembling voice told him. "I'm
just--yours."

Saltash stopped abruptly and laid his face for a moment against the
shorn, golden head. Just for that moment a hint of emotion showed in his
strange eyes, but it was gone instantly.

He raised himself again with a grimace of self-ridicule. "Well, look
here! Don't forget to play the game! Larpent--your daddy--is knocked out,
remember. He is unconscious for the present, but the doctor chap seems to
think he'll be all right. A nasty suspicious person that doctor, so watch
out! And let me see! What is Toby short for? I'd better know."

"Antoinette," whispered the lips that still caressed his hand.

"Antoinette!" Saltash's hand closed softly upon the pointed chin, softly
lifted it. "I think _Mignonette_ would suit you better," he said, in his
quick, caressing way. "It's time I chose a name for you, _ma chere_. I
shall call you that."

"Or just Nonette of Nowhere," breathed the red lips, piteously smiling.
"That would suit me--best of all."

"No--no!" said Saltash, and gently relinquished his hold. "Don't forget
that you are a favourite of the gods! That counts for something, my Toby.
They don't take up with everybody."

"They haven't done much for me so far," said Toby, suddenly rebellious.

"Hush!" said Saltash, with semi-comic warning. "You are too young to say
that."

"I am--older than you think, sir," said Toby, colouring painfully and
turning from his look.

"No, you're not!" Swiftly, with a certain arrogance, Saltash made answer.
"I know--how old you are, child. It is written in your eyes. They have
always told me--all I need to know." Then, very tenderly, as Toby's hands
covered them from his look: "_Mais, Mignonette_, they have never told me
anything that you could wish me not to know."

He slipped his arm again about the slender shoulders and pressed them
closely for a moment. Then he stood up and turned to go.

He was smiling as he passed out--the smile of the gambler who knows that
he holds a winning card.

PART II

CHAPTER I

JAKE BOLTON

It was a week after