Renouard understood that they were talking of him. Before he could
move away, Mrs. Dunster struck in placidly -

"Don't let yourself be shocked by the tales you may hear of him, my
dear. Most of it is envy."

Then he heard Miss Moorsom's voice replying to the old lady -

"Oh! I am not easily deceived. I think I may say I have an
instinct for truth."

He hastened away from that house with his heart full of dread.



CHAPTER VI



On board the schooner, lying on the settee on his back with the
knuckles of his hands pressed over his eyes, he made up his mind
that he would not return to that house for dinner--that he would
never go back there any more. He made up his mind some twenty
times. The knowledge that he had only to go up on the quarter
deck, utter quietly the words: "Man the windlass," and that the
schooner springing into life would run a hundred miles out to sea
before sunrise, deceived his struggling will. Nothing easier!
Yet, in the end, this young man, almost ill-famed for his ruthless
daring, the inflexible leader of two tragically successful