ss of
her youthful inexperience, nearly a year ago, and to which she would
return so battered and broken, so deeply degraded by the knowledge of
evil.

Lady Kirkbank had started for London on the previous day.

'I am evidently not wanted _here_,' she said, with an offended air; 'and
I must have everything at Kirkbank ready for a house full of people
before the twelfth of August, so the sooner I get to Scotland the
better. I shall make a _detour_ in order to go and see Lady Maulevrier
on my way down. It is due to myself that I should let her know that _I_
am entirely blameless in this most uncomfortable business.'

'You can tell her ladyship what you please,' answered Maulevrier,
bluntly. 'I shall not gainsay you, so long as you do not slander my
sister; but as long as I live I shall regret that I, knowing something
of London society, did not interfere to prevent Lesbia being given over
to your keeping.'

'If I had known the kind of girl she is I would have had nothing to do
with her,' retorted Lady Kirkbank with exasperation; and so they parted.

The _Philomel_ had been lying off Cowes three days before Mr. Smithson
appeared upon the scene. He had got wind somehow from a sailor, who had
talked with one of the foreign crew, of the destination of the _Cayman_,
and he had crossed from Southampton to Havre on the steamer _Wolf_
during that night in which Lesbia had been carried back to Cowes on the
_Philomel_.

He was at Havre when the _Cayman_ arrived, with Montesma and his
tawny-visaged crew on board, no one else.

'You may examine every corner of your ship,' Montesma cried, scornfully,
when Smithson came on board and swore that Lesbia must be hidden
somewhere in the vessel. 'The bird has flown: she will shelter in
neither your nest nor in mine, Smithson. You have lost her--and so have
I. We may as well be friends in misfortune.'

He was haggard, livid with grief and anger. He looked ten years older
than he had looked the other night at the ball, when his dash and
swagger, and handsome Spanish head had been the admiration of the room.

Smithson was very angry, but he was not a fighting man. He had enjoyed
various opportunities for distinguishing himself in that line in the
island of Cuba; but he had always avoided such opportunities. So now,
after a good deal of bluster and violent language, which Montesma took
as lightly as if it had been the whistling of the wind in the shrouds,
poor Smithson calmed down, and