has found her," said Stratton slowly, and speaking in a strangely
mechanical way.

"What!"

"Or they have found him." And he told the old man all he had seen.

Brettison heard him to the end, and then faintly, but with conviction in
his tones, he cried:

"Impossible! It cannot be true."

Stratton looked at him wistfully, and shook his head.

"No," he said, drawing a deep breath; "it cannot be true."

Brettison, whose breathing was painful, lay back watching his companion
with dilated eyes, and then turned to the woman who had drawn back from
the bed and waited while her visitor talked to his friend.

"Madame," he said in French, "Monsieur Cousin?"

She turned from the window where she had been watching.

"Out on the sands, monsieur," she said in a startled way. "My good man
says he is sitting with the new company who have come since yesterday to
the house above."

"Where is your husband?"

"Out, sir. He--he was obliged to go to the _ville_."

"And still it is impossible," said Stratton slowly as he looked
appealingly in the old man's eyes. "It cannot be true. Brettison, tell
me that my mind is wandering; all this is more than I can bear."

"Shall I wait, monsieur?" asked the woman, who was trembling visibly.

"No, I am better now," said Brettison. "Leave me with my friend,"--and
as soon as they were alone--"I shall not want a doctor now. There is
some mystery here, Malcolm, lad, far more than we know."

"Thank God!" said Stratton, sinking into a chair and covering his face
with his hands.

"Stratton," cried the old man fiercely, "is it a time to give up weakly
like that?"

The stricken man started to his feet, and threw back his head as if his
friend's words had suddenly galvanised him into life and action.

"That man is not to be trusted for an hour. You know it, and yet you
stand there leaving her in his hands. Even if it were possible that her
father has condoned the past, he does not know what is familiar to us.
But he has not. Boy, I tell you there is some mistake."

"What shall I do?" said Stratton hoarsely.

"Go to them at once. Tell them of his attack upon me."

"They have forgotten the past, and will say it is the invention of a
jealous enemy."

"Then I will go myself," cried the old man; and, feeble though he was,
he insisted upon dressing for his self-imposed task.

"They will believe me," he said; "and though I can hardly think there is
danger to anyone but us, whom