And oddly enough, it was Colville who preached patience to his
companions in suspense.

"Give him time," he said. "There can only be one answer to such a
proposal. But he is young. It is not when we are young that we see
the world as it really is, but live in a land of dreams. Give him
time."

The Marquis de Gemosac was impatient, however, and was for telling
Barebone more than had been disclosed to him.

"There is no knowing," he cried, "what that canaille is doing in
France."

"There is no knowing," admitted Colville, with his air of
suppressing a half-developed yawn, "but I think we know, all the
same--you and I, Marquis. And there is no hurry."

After three days Loo Barebone had still given no answer. As he
hoisted the sail and felt for the tiller in the dark, he was,
perhaps, meditating on this momentous reply, or perhaps he had made
up his mind long before, and would hold to the decision even to his
own undoing, as men do who are impulsive and not strong. The water
lapped and gurgled round the bows, for the wind was almost ahead,
and it was only by nursing the heavy boat that he saved the
necessity of making a tack across the narrow creek. In the morning
he had, as usual, run down into the river and to the slip-way,
little suspecting that Miriam and Sep were just above him behind the
dyke, where they had sat three days before listening to Dormer
Colville's story of the little boy who was a King. To-night he ran