the glow of her tender beauty, and she did not shrink from him when he
placed a protecting hand on her shoulder.

"You need no promise from me, Miss Fenshawe," he said, with a labored
utterance that was wholly unaccountable to him. "Twice already have I
refused to leave you, though I have been summoned to England to resume
an inheritance wrongfully withheld. We are stubborn, we Richards, and
we are loyal, too. It was you, I now believe, who snatched me from
misery, almost from despair. Have no fear, therefore, that I shall
desert you."

"You have taken a load from my heart," she answered softly. "You are
the only man on board In whom I have any real confidence. I fear that
my grandfather has been misled, wilfully and shamefully misled, but I
am unable to prevent it for lack of proof. But to-night, after dinner,
I chanced to overhear a conversation with reference to you which
redoubled the doubts I have felt ever since this expedition was decided
on. I feel that I must tell you. Baron von Kerber distrusts you because
you are a gentleman. He fears you will act as one if you have to choose
between his interests and your own honor. And today, since your letter
arrived--"

"Yes, ma'am," they heard Captain Stump shout from the bridge, "Miss
Fenshawe is forrard, with Mr. Royson. You'll find it a very pretty
sight goin' through the canal on a night like this."

And Mrs. Haxton, hunting the ship for Irene--not to speak of Royson and
the girl herself when in calmer mood--may have wondered why Stump
should trumpet forth his information as though he wished all on board
to hear it. Perhaps it was, as Dick already well knew, that the stout