by the letter, and under the reserve that Captain Clubbe was not at
the moment on shore.

For Captain Clubbe had known Frenchman since boyhood.

"I understand," said Dormer Colville to him two or three days after
the arrival of "The Last Hope," "that the Marquis de Gemosac cannot
do better than apply to you for some information he desires to
possess. In fact, it is on that account that we are here."

The introduction had been a matter requiring patience. For Captain
Clubbe had not laid aside in his travels a certain East Anglian
distrust of the unknown. He had, of course, noted the presence of
the strangers when he landed at Farlingford quay, but his large,
immobile face had betrayed no peculiar interest. There had been
plenty to tell him all that was known of Monsieur de Gemosac and
Dormer Colville, and a good deal that was only surmised. But the
imagination of even the darksome River Andrew failed to soar
successfully under the measuring blue eye, and the total lack of
comment of Captain Clubbe.

There was, indeed, little to tell, although the strangers had been
seen to go to the rectory in quite a friendly way, and had taken a
glass of sherry in the rector's study. Mrs. Clacy was responsible
for this piece of news, and her profession giving her the entree to
almost every back door in Farlingford enabled her to gather news at
the fountain-head. For Mrs. Clacy went out to oblige. She obliged
the rectory on Mondays, and Mrs. Clubbe, with what was technically
described as the heavy wash, on Tuesdays. Whatever Mrs. Clacy was
asked to do she could perform with a rough efficiency. But she