fortable.
Tired? No! Are you?"

"Oh, no, dear, only I thought we could not go on much longer like this."

"Let fate alter it, then," said the admiral gruffly. "Don't catch me at
it. Myra hasn't suggested such a thing."

"She? No," said Miss Jerrold quickly. "O Mark!" she cried, "I am so
glad to see her happy once again."

"God bless her, yes. I think she must have had all the trouble meant
for her life in one big storm, so that she may have a calm passage right
to the end."

"I pray that it may be so," said Aunt Jerrold fervently. "How happy she
looks."

"Yes," said Sir Mark, closing the glass through which he had watched her
while his sister spoke.

They were right, for the calm had come. Seated hand in hand, Stratton
had told Myra in the soft, dim light of evening, while the waters
murmured at her feet, all the tangle of his troubles, and she had
literally forced him to tell her all again and again, for the narrative
was never tedious to her as a twice told tale, while the knowledge of
all that he had suffered for her sake drew the bond between them in a
faster knot.

On this particular morning, when all was bright and sunny, there yet was
one cloud near, for a servant came out from the cottage to say that
monsieur was wanted.

Stratton sprang up, and Myra rose and clung to his arm, her eyes
dilating with the dread of some new trouble. But he at once calmed her.

"There can be no trouble now that we could not meet," he whispered; and
she sank back in her seat to watch him till he disappeared within the
door.

The officer who had arrested Henderson was standing in the little room
Stratton used, and with him a thin, earnest looking man in black, who
seemed to wear an official uniform as well as air.

Bows were exchanged, and then the latter produced some papers.

"I have come, monsieur, respecting the man Barron-Dale," he said in very
good English. "As you know, monsieur, we have been in communication
with the English authorities, and, as we have reported to you from time
to time, there has been a reluctance on their part to investigate the
matter."

"Yes, I have heard all this," said Stratton, trying to be calm.

"They were disposed to treat him as an impostor, and at last sent us
word definitely that Barron-Dale and Henderson certainly died in their
attempt to escape from your great prison. The correspondence has gone
on, monsieur, till now, and I believe that the English authorities we