course, when I went into the garden I hadn't any idea that you would be
in such an unlikely place," he said, with a kindly smile. "Let us hope
that you won't go there again."

Miss Drewitt, hardly able to believe her ears, let him go without a word,
and in a dazed fashion stood at the door and watched him up the lane.
When the captain came in a little later she was sitting in a stiff and
uncomfortable attitude by the window, still thinking.

He was so tired after a long day in town that the girl, at considerable
personal inconvenience, allowed him to finish his supper before
recounting the manifold misdeeds of Mr. Tredgold. She waited until he
had pushed his chair back and lit a pipe, and then without any preface
plunged into the subject with an enthusiasm which she endeavoured in vain
to make contagious. The captain listened in silence and turned a
somewhat worried face in her direction when she had finished.

"We can't all think alike," he said, feebly, as she waited with flushed
cheeks and sparkling eyes for the verdict. "I told you he hadn't taken
the map. As for those three idiots and their harebrained voyage--"

"But Mr. Tredgold said that he didn't believe in the treasure," said the
wrathful Prudence. "One thing is, he can never come here again; I think
that I made him understand that. The idea of thinking that you could
tell a falsehood!"

The captain bent down and, picking a used match from the hearthrug, threw
it carefully under the grate. Miss Drewitt watched him expectantly.

"We mustn't quarrel with people's opinions," he said, at last. "It's a