nights to the rectory, only to find the rector there, vaguely kind,
looking at him with a watery eye, through the spectacles which were
rarely straight upon his nose, with an unasked question on his
hesitating lips.

For Septimus Marvin knew that Colville, in the name of the Marquis
de Gemosac, had asked Loo Barebone to go to France and institute
proceedings there to recover a great heritage, which it seemed must
be his. And Barebone had laughed and put off his reply from day to
day for three days.

Few knew of it in Farlingford, though many must have suspected the
true explanation of the prolonged stay of the two strangers at the
"Black Sailor." Captain Clubbe and Septimus Marvin, Dormer Colville
and Monsieur de Gemosac shared this knowledge, and awaited,
impatiently enough, an answer which could assuredly be only in the
affirmative. Clubbe was busy enough throughout the day at the old
slip-way, where "The Last Hope" was under repair--the last ship, it
appeared likely, that the rotten timbers could support or the old,
old shipwrights mend.

Loo Barebone was no less regular in his attendance at the river-
side, and worked all day, on deck or in the rigging, at leisurely
sail-making or neat seizing of a worn rope. He was gay, and
therefore incomprehensible to a slow-thinking, grave-faced race.

"What do I want with a heritage?" he asked, carelessly. "I am mate
of 'The Last Hope'--and that is all. Give me time. I have not made
up my mind yet, but I think it will be No."