are they staying?"

"At a little chateau-like place on the cliff; they got it through a
woman they knew at Saint Malo a couple or three years ago. She was
servant there. She is nurse now to an invalid gentleman staying at a
cottage just below."

Stratton stood gazing at his friend as if he had been turned to stone.

CHAPTER FIFTY ONE.

AND ALL IN VAIN.

Guest stood looking at his friend for a few moments, half astonished,
half annoyed.

"Look here," he said at last, taking his arm and drawing it through his
own, "we can't talk freely in this place. Come out and have a cigar on
the sands."

Stratton made no reply, but walked out with him like a man who had been
stunned, Guest taking the direction opposite to that in which the
admiral's temporary home lay. Then, stopping short by the ebbing sea,
he drew out his cigar case and offered it; but it was waved aside.

"Quite right," said Guest shortly; "we can't smoke now. Look here, old
fellow, I shouldn't be your friend if I did not speak out when you were
in the wrong. You must have known we were coming here, and you must see
now that you have done, as I said, a cruel thing in coming; so give me
your word as a man of honour that you will be ready to start with me in
the morning first thing."

"I tell you I did not know they were coming here," said Stratton in a
deep, solemn tone; "I tell you I did not follow you, and I tell you that
I cannot leave here with you in the morning."

"Then how in the world did you come here?"

"I don't know. I suppose it was fate."

"Bosh! Who believes in fate? Don't talk nonsense, man. I am horribly
sorry for you, as sorry as I can be for a man who is my friend, but who
has never trusted or confided in me; but I stand now toward the admiral
and Myra in such a position that I cannot keep aloof and see them
insulted--well, I will not say that--see their feelings hurt by the
reckless conduct of a man who is in the wrong."

"In the wrong?" said Stratton involuntarily.

"Yes, in the wrong. You have wronged Myra."

Stratton sighed.

"And made her the wreck she is. I don't say you could have made things
better by speaking out--that is your secret--but I do say you could make
matters better by keeping away."

"Yes, I must go away as soon as possible."

"You will, then?" cried Guest eagerly. "In the morning?"

"No; yes, if I can get away."

"That's quibbling, man; an excuse to get near and see her," cried Guest