Lesbia has made up her mind to see St. Malo
Regatta, and with such a sacred charge I can't be too careful.'

'I'll wire before eight o'clock to-morrow,' answered Montesma, 'You have
decided wisely. Your respectable English Wilkinson is an excellent
man--but nothing would surprise me less than his reducing your _Cayman_
to matchwood in the next gale.'

CHAPTER XL.

A NOTE OF ALARM.

That strange scene in the old house at Fellside made a profound
impression upon Lord Hartfield. He tried to disguise his trouble, and
did all in his power to seem gay and at perfect ease in his wife's
company; but his mind was full of anxiety, and Mary loved him too well
to be for a moment in doubt as to his feelings.

'There is something wrong, Jack,' she said, while they were breakfasting
at a table in the verandah, with the lake and the bills in front of them
and the sweet morning air around them. 'You try to talk and to be
lively, but there is a little perpendicular wrinkle in your forehead
which I know as well as the letters of the alphabet, and that little
line means worry. I used to see it in the old days, when you were
breaking your heart for Lesbia. Why cannot you be frank and confide in
me. It is your duty, sir, as my husband.'

'Is it my duty to halve my burdens as well as my joys? How do I know if
those girlish shoulders are strong enough to bear the weight of them?'

'I can bear anything you can bear, and I won't be cheated out of my
share in your worries. If you were obliged to have a tooth out, I would
have one out too, for company.'

'I hope the dentist would be too conscientious to allow that.'

'Tell me your trouble, Hartfield,' she said, earnestly, leaning across
the table, bringing her grave intelligent face near to him.

They were quite alone, he and she. The servants had done their
ministering. Behind them there was the empty dining-room, in front of
them the sunlit panorama of lake and hill. There could not be a safer
place for telling secrets.

'Tell me what it is that worries you,' Mary pleaded again.

'I will, dear. After all perfect trust is the best; nay, it is your due,
for you are brave enough and true enough to be trusted with secrets that
mean life and death. In a word, then, Mary, the cause of my trouble is
that old man we saw the other night.'

'Steadman's uncle?'

'Do you really believe that he is Steadman's uncle?'

'My grandmother told me so,' answered Mary, reddening to the root