hur Pembroke, and whether their conversation had been more eager or
more angry, were hard to tell. Will Law, broken and dejected, his heart
torn by a thousand doubts and a thousand pains, sat listening, though
but half comprehending.

"Every plan gone wrong!" cried Sir Arthur. "Every plan gone wrong, and
out of it all we can only say that he has escaped from prison for whom
no prison could be enough of hell! Though he be your brother, I tell it
to your face, the gallows had been too good for John Law! Look you
below. See that girl, pure as an angel, as noble and generous a soul us
ever breathed--what hath she done to deserve this fate? You have brought
her from her home, and to that home she can not now return unsmirched.
And all this for a man who is at this moment fleeing with the woman whom
she deemed her friend! What is there left in life for her?"

Will Law groaned and buried his own head deeper in his hands. "What is
there left for any of us?" said he. "What is there left for me?"

"For you?" said Sir Arthur, questioningly. "Why, the next ship back from
Brest, or from any other port of France. 'Tis somewhat different with a
woman."

"You do not understand," said Will Law. "The separation means somewhat
for me."

"Surely you do not mean--you have no reference to Mary Connynge?" cried
Sir Arthur.

Will bowed his head abjectly and left the other to guess that which sat
upon his mind. Sir Arthur drew a long breath and stopped his angry
pacing up and down.

"It ran on for weeks," said Will Law. "We were to have been married. I
had no thought of this. 'Twas I who took her to and from the prison
regularly, and 'twas thus that we met. She told me she was but the
messenger of the Lady Catharine."

Sir Arthur drew a long, slow breath. "Then I may say to you," said he,
"that your brother, John Law, is a hundred times more traitor and felon
than even now I thought him. Yonder he goes"--and he shook his fist into
the enveloping mist which hung above the waters. "Yonder he goes,
somewhere, I give you warning, where he deems no trail shall be left
behind him. But I promise you, whatever be your own wish, I shall follow
him into the last corner of the earth, but he shall see me and give
account for this! There is none of us he has not deceived, utterly, and
like a black-hearted villain. He shall account for it, though it be
years from now."

So now, inch by inch, fathom after fathom, cable length after cable
length, s