hat is my
source of self-respect. My friend can always be my friend.'

'Yes, while it's not too late,' said Beauchamp.

She observed a sudden stringing of his features. He called to the chief
boatman, made his command intelligible to that portly capitano, and went
on to Roland, who was puffing his after-breakfast cigarette in
conversation with the tolerant English lady.

'You condescend to notice us, Signor Beauchamp,' said Roland. 'The vessel
is up to some manoeuvre?'

'We have decided not to land,' replied Beauchamp. 'And Roland,' he
checked the Frenchman's shout of laughter, 'I think of making for
Trieste. Let me speak to you, to both. Renee is in misery. She must not
go back.'

Roland sprang to his feet, stared, and walked over to Renee.

'Nevil,' said Rosamund Culling, 'do you know what you are doing?'

'Perfectly,' said he. 'Come to her. She is a girl, and I must think and
act for her.'

Roland met them.

'My dear Nevil, are you in a state of delusion? Renee denies . . .'

'There's no delusion, Roland. I am determined to stop a catastrophe. I
see it as plainly as those Alps. There is only one way, and that's the
one I have chosen.'

'Chosen! my friend'. But allow me to remind you that you have others to
consult. And Renee herself . . .'

'She is a girl. She loves me, and I speak for her.'

'She has said it?'

'She has more than said it.'

'You strike me to the deck, Nevil. Either you are downright mad--which
seems the likeliest, or we are all in a nightmare. Can you suppose I will
let my sister be carried away the deuce knows where, while her father is
expecting her, and to fulfil an engagement affecting his pledged word?'

Beauchamp simply replied:

'Come to her.'

CHAPTER X

A SINGULAR COUNCIL

The four sat together under the shadow of the helmsman, by whom they were
regarded as voyagers in debate upon the question of some hours further on
salt water. 'No bora,' he threw in at intervals, to assure them that the
obnoxious wind of the Adriatic need not disturb their calculations.

It was an extraordinary sitting, but none of the parties to it thought of
it so when Nevil Beauchamp had plunged them into it. He compelled them,
even Renee--and she would have flown had there been wings on her
shoulders--to feel something of the life and death issues present to his
soul, and submit to the discussion, in plain language of the
market-place, of the most delicate of human subjects for her,