ld have befitted a mistress of the robes, she took her departure,
leaving Adrian smiling with amusement at her specious manner of
announcing that his own bedroom--the only one available for the
purpose in the ruins--was being duly converted into a lady's bower.

"It grieves me to think," mused he after a pause, while Rene still
bursting with ungratified curiosity, hung about the further end of the
room, "of the terrible anxiety they must be in about you at Pulwick,
and of our absolute inability to convey to them the good news of your
safety."

The girl gave a little laugh, with her lips over the cup, and shrugged
her shoulders but said nothing.

"My God, yes," quoth Rene cheerfully from his corner. "Notre Dame
d'Auray has watched over Mademoiselle to-day. She would not permit the
daughter to die like the mother. And now we have got her ladyship we
shall keep her too. This, if your honour remembers his sailor's
knowledge, looks like a three-days' gale."

"You are right, I fancy," said Sir Adrian, going over to him and
looking out of the window. "Mademoiselle de Savenaye will have to take
up her abode in our lighthouse for a longer time than she bargained. I
do not remember hearing the breakers thunder in our cave so loud for
many years. I trust," continued the light-keeper, coming down to his
fair guest again, "that you may be able to endure such rough
hospitality as ours must needs be!"

"It has been much more pleasant and I feel far more welcome already
than at Pulwick," remarked Mademoiselle, between two deliberate sips,
and in no way discomposed, it seemed, at the prospect held out to her.

"How?" cried Sir Adrian with a start, while the unwonted flush mounted
to his forehead, "you, not welcome at Pulwick! Have they not welcomed
a child of Cecile de Savenaye at Pulwick?... Thank God, then, for the
accident that has sent you to me!"

The girl looked at him with an inquisitive smile in her eyes; there
was something on her lips which she restrained. Surrendering her cup,
she remarked demurely:

"Yes, it was a lucky accident, was it not, that there was some one
to offer shelter to the outcast from the sea? It is like a tale of
old. It is delightful. Delightful, too, not to be drowned, safe and
sound ... and welcome in this curious old place."

She had risen and, as the cloak fell from her steaming garments, again
she shivered.

"But you are right," she said, "I must go to bed, and get these damp
garments off