her uncle.

"I don't blame 'er. She meant no 'arm. She's on'y a bit of a lass,
w'en all is said an' done. Mebbe it's my fault, or yours, or the fault
of both of us. An' now, David, I'll tell you wot I 'ad in me mind in
comin' 'ere this morning. You're hard up. You don't know where to
turn for a penny. If you're agreeable, I'll put a trustworthy man in
this office an' give 'im full powers to pull your affairs straight.
Mind you, I'm doin' this for Iris, not for you. An' now that we know
wot's 'appening in South America, you an' I will go out there and look
into things. A mail steamer will take us there in sixteen days, an'
before we sail we can work the cables a bit so as to stop Iris from
startin' for 'ome before we arrive. The trip will do us good, an'
we'll be away from the gossip of Bootle. Are you game? Well, gimme
your 'and on it."

[Illustration: "Well, gimme your 'and on it"]

CHAPTER XII

THE LURE OF GOLD

"Philip, I want to tell you something."

"Something pleasant?"

"No."

"Then why tell me?"

"Because, unhappily, it must be told. I hope you will forgive me,
though I shall never forgive myself. Oh, my dear, my dear, why did we
ever meet? And what am I to say? I--well, I have promised to marry
another man."

"Disgraceful!" said Philip.

Though Iris's faltered confession might fairly be regarded as
astounding, Philip was unmoved. The German captain had given him a
cigar, and he was examining it with a suspicion that was pardonable
after the first few whiffs.

"Philip dear, this is quite serious," said Iris, momentarily
withdrawing her wistful gaze from the far-away line where sapphire sea
and amber sky met in harmony. Northeastern Brazil is a favored clime.
Bad weather is there a mere link, as it were, between unbroken weeks of
brilliant sunshine, when nature lolls in the warmth and stirs herself
only at night under the moon and the stars. That dingy trader, the
_Unser Fritz_, ostensibly carrying wool and guano from the Argentine to
Hamburg, was now swinging west at less than half speed over the long
rollers which alone bore testimony to the recent gale. Already a deep
tint of crimson haze over the western horizon was eloquent, in nature's
speech, of land ahead. At her present pace, the _Unser Fritz_ would
enter the harbor at Pernambuco on the following morning.

Iris, her troubled face resting on her hands, her elbows propped on the
rails of the poop on the port si