an
adventurer--swindler--gambler--slave-dealer--what you will--but I love her
as I never thought to love a woman, and I should have been true as steel,
if she had been plucky enough to trust me. But, as I told her an hour ago,
women have not lion hearts. They can talk tall while the sky is clear and
the sun shines, but at the first crack of thunder--_va te promener_.'

'If you have killed her--' began Hartfield.

'Killed her! No. Some small bloodvessel burst in the agitation of that
terrible scene. She will be well in a week, and she will forget me. But
I shall not forget her. She is the one flower that has sprung on the
barren plain of my life. She was my Picciola.'

He turned his back on Lord Hartfield and walked to the other end of the
deck. Something in his face, in the vibration of his deep voice,
convinced Hartfield of his truth. A bad man undoubtedly--steeped to the
lips in evil--and yet so far true that he had passionately, deeply,
devotedly loved this one woman.

It was the dead of night when Lesbia recovered consciousness, and even
then she lay silent, taking no heed of those around her, in a state of
utter prostration. Kibble nursed her carefully, tenderly, all through
the night; Maulevrier hardly left the cabin, and Lady Kirkbank, always
more or less a victim to the agonies of sea-sickness, still found time
to utter lamentations and wailings over the ruin of her protegee's
fortune.

'Never had a girl such a chance,' she moaned. 'Quite the best match in
society. The house in Park Lane alone cost a fortune. Her diamonds would
have been the finest in London.'

'They would have been stained with the blood of the niggers he traded in
out yonder,' answered Maulevrier. 'Do you think I would have let my
sister marry a slave-dealer?'

'I don't believe a syllable of it,' protested Lady Kirkbank, dabbing her
brow with a handkerchief steeped in eau de Cologne. 'A vile fabrication
of Montesma's, who wanted to blacken poor Smithson's character in order
to extenuate his own crimes.'

'Well, we won't go into that question,' said Maulevrier wearily. 'The
Smithson match is off, anyhow; and it matters very little to us whether
he made most money out of niggers or bubble companies, or lotteries or
gaming hells.'

'I am convinced that Smithson made his fortune in a thoroughly
gentlemanlike manner,' argued Lady Kirkbank. 'Look at the people who
visit him, and the houses he goes to. And I don't see why the match need
b