he hotel across the road. I believe he was glad I was
there to talk to. But I thought there was some misapprehension in the
first statement he shot out at me without loss of time, that Captain
Anthony had been glad to see him. It was indeed difficult to believe
that, directly he opened the door, his wife's "sailor-brother" had
positively shouted: "Oh, it's you! The very man I wanted to see."

"I found him sitting there," went on Fyne impressively in his
effortless, grave chest voice, "drafting his will."

This was unexpected, but I preserved a non-committal attitude, knowing
full well that our actions in themselves are neither mad nor sane. But
I did not see what there was to be excited about. And Fyne was
distinctly excited. I understood it better when I learned that the
captain of the _Ferndale_ wanted little Fyne to be one of the trustees.
He was leaving everything to his wife. Naturally, a request which
involved him into sanctioning in a way a proceeding which he had been
sent by his wife to oppose, must have appeared sufficiently mad to Fyne.

"Me! Me, of all people in the world!" he repeated portentously. But I
could see that he was frightened. Such want of tact!

"He knew I came from his sister. You don't put a man into such an
awkward position," complained Fyne. "It made me speak much more
strongly against all this very painful business than I would have had
the heart to do otherwise."

I pointed out to him concisely, and keeping my eyes on the door of the
hotel, that he and his wife were the only bond with the land Captain
Anthony had. Who else could he have asked?

"I explained to him that he was breaking this bond," declared Fyne
solemnly. "Breaking it once for all. And for what--for what?"

He glared at me. I could perhaps have given him an inkling for what,
but I said nothing. He started again:

"My wife assures me that the girl does not love him a bit. She goes by
that letter she received from her. There is a passage in it where she
practically admits that she was quite unscrupulous in accepting this
offer of marriage, but says to my wife that she supposes she, my wife,
will not blame her--as it was in self-defence. My wife has her own
ideas, but this is an outrageous misapprehension of her views.
Outrageous."

The good little man paused and then added weightily:

"I didn't tell that to my brother-in-law--I mean, my wife's views."

"No," I said. "What would have been the g