ger had risen and was coming toward her,
his face white and haggard. Then, as he advanced into the brighter light
of the room, Madge saw that his eyes were very blue.

"Your father isn't dead," the man replied quietly. "He is here in this
very house, and he cares for you more than all the world in spite of his
long silence!"

The little captain sprang to her feet, her face flaming. "Captain Jules!
_He_ is my father? He seemed so old that I didn't realize it. Yet he has
said so many things to me that might have made me guess he knew
everything in the world about me. Oh, where is he? My own, own Captain
Jules?"

The stranger, whose arms had been outstretched toward Madge, let them
fall at his sides, but Madge had no eyes for him. Captain Jules had
entered the room and she had flung herself straight into his kindly
arms.

So, after all, it was Captain Jules Fontaine who had to make it clear to
Madge that he was not her father, but her father's lifelong and devoted
friend. The captain told Madge the story while he held both her cold
hands in his big, rough ones, and the man who was her own father sat
watching and waiting for her verdict.

Jules Fontaine had never been captain of anything but a sailing schooner,
but he had been a gunner's mate on Captain Robert Morton's ship. He alone
knew that Captain Morton had been forced into the fault that he had
committed by order of his admiral. When Captain Morton was dismissed from
the United States Naval Service Jules Fontaine, gunner's mate, had
procured his discharge and followed the fortunes of his captain. The two
men drifted south to the tropics. Every American vessel is equipped with
a diving outfit, and some of the men are taught to go down under the
water to examine the bottoms of the boats. Jules Fontaine liked the
business of diving. When the two men found themselves in a strange land,
without any occupations, Captain Jules joined his fortunes with the pearl
divers and for many years followed their perilous trade.

Captain Morton had a harder time to get along, but after a while he
studied foreign languages and began to translate books. Five years before
the two men had come back to the United States. Since that time Captain
Morton had tried to follow every movement of his daughter. Captain Jules
wanted his friend to make himself known to his own people, but Robert
Morton feared that they would never forgive his long silence or his early
disgrace. He believed that