?" she queried. "But, Uncle Somerville, I don't understand--"

The Rajah laughed.

"That was a very pretty blush, my deah. Bless your innocent soul, if
I were young Misteh Winton, I'm not sure but I should consideh the
game well lost."

She was gazing at him wide-eyed now, and the blush had left a pallor
behind it.

"You mean that I--that I--"

"I mean that you are a helpeh worth having, Miss Carteret. Anotheh
time Misteh Winton won't pay cou't to a cha'ming young girl and try to
build a railroad at one and the same moment, I fancy. Hah!"

The startled eyes veiled themselves swiftly, and Virginia's voice sank
to its softest cadence.

"Have I been an accomplice," she began, "in this--this despicable
thing, Uncle Somerville?"

Mr. Darrah began a little to see his mistake.

"Ah--an accomplice? Oh, no, my deah Virginia, not quite that. The word
smacks too much of the po-lice cou'ts. Let us say that Misteh Winton
has found your company mo' attractive than that of his laborehs, and
commend his good taste in the matteh."

So much he said by way of damping down the fire he had so rashly
lighted. Then Jastrow came in with one of the interminable cipher
telegrams and Virginia was left alone.

For a time she sat at the deserted breakfast-table, dry-eyed,
hot-hearted, thinking such thoughts as would come crowding thickly
upon the heels of such a revelation. Winton would fail: a man with
honor, good repute, his entire career at stake, as he himself had
admitted, would go down to miserable oblivion and defeat, lacking some
friendly hand to smite him alive to a sense of his danger. And, in her
uncle's estimation, at least, she, Virginia Carteret, would figure as
the Delilah triumphant.

She rose, tingling to her finger-tips with the shame of it, went to
her state-room, and found her writing materials. In such a crisis her
methods could be as direct as a man's. Winton was coming again that
evening. He must be stopped and sent about his business.

So she wrote him a note, telling him he must not come--a note man-like
in its conciseness, and yet most womanly in its failure to give even
the remotest hint of the new and binding reason why he must not come.
And just before luncheon an obliging Cousin Billy was prevailed upon
to undertake its delivery.

When he had found Winton at the shale-slide, and had given him Miss
Carteret's mandate, the Reverend Billy did not return directly to the
Rosemary. On the contrary, he exte