h, and the Leithcourts fled precipitately
and have not since been heard of."

"Ah, no wonder!" he remarked with a dry laugh. "No wonder! But look
here, Gordon, I'm not going to stand by and let that scoundrel Woodroffe
marry Muriel."

"You love her, perhaps?" I hazarded.

"Yes, I do love her," he admitted. "And, by heaven!" he cried, "I will
tell the truth and crush the whole of their ingenious plot. Have you met
Elma Heath?" he asked.

"Yes," I said in quick anxiety.

"Then listen," he said in a low, earnest voice. "Listen, and I'll tell
you something.

"There is a greater mystery surrounding that yacht, the _Lola_, than you
have ever imagined, my dear old chap," declared Jack Durnford, looking
me straight in the face. "When you told me about it on the quarter-deck
that day outside Leghorn, I was half a mind to tell you what I knew.
Only one fact prevented me--my disinclination to reveal my own secrets.
I loved Muriel Leithcourt, yet, afloat as I was, I could never see
her--I could not obtain from her own lips the explanation I desired. Yet
I would not prejudge her--no, and I won't now!" he added with a fierce
resolution.

"I love her," he went on, "and she reciprocates my love. Ours is a
secret engagement made in Malta two years ago, and yet you tell me that
she has pledged herself to that fellow Woodroffe--the man known here in
London as Dick Archer. I can't believe it--I really can't, old fellow.
She could never write to me as she has done, urging patience and secrecy
until my return."

"Unless, of course, she desired to gain time," I suggested.

But my friend was silent; his brows were deep knit.

"Woodroffe is at the present moment in Petersburg," I said. "I've just
come back from there."

"In St. Petersburg!" he gasped, surprised. "Then he is with that
villainous official, Baron Oberg, the Governor-General of Finland."

"No; Oberg is living shut up in his palace at Helsingfors, fearing to go
out lest he shall be assassinated," was my answer.

"And Elma? What has become of her?"

"She is in hiding in Petersburg, awaiting such time as I can get her
safely out of Russia," and then, continuing, I explained how she had
been maimed and rendered deaf and dumb.

"What!" he cried fiercely. "Have they actually done that to the poor
girl? Then they feared that she should reveal the nature of their plot,
for she had seen and heard."

"Seen and heard what?"

"Be patient; we will elucidate this mystery,