e was but one other bit of land
anywhere around--an uninhabited islet known as 'The Thimble,' that lay
a quarter of a mile due east. Surely this isolation promised security.
Here, if anywhere, we might snap our fingers at the machinations of M.
Balencourt and the mysterious 'Forty.' It would be rather cold off the
Maine coast during this unseasonable summer, but there were fireplaces
in plenty and stacks of drift-wood. The only real difficulty lay in
persuading my estimable sister to cut short her Newport visit and come
to me a month earlier than usual.

"Finally, I left it to Betty to manage. 'I can't explain myself any
clearer, my dear,' I ended up, rather lamely, 'but it will be better
for George. Will you do it?'

"'So you won't trust me with the secret? No; you needn't protest--there
is a secret, and I ought to know it. But you have put it so cleverly
that I haven't any choice in the matter. "Better for George" indeed!
Very good, mon oncle; I'll obey orders. But remember that it will be
the worse for you later on, unless you can show good and sufficient
reason for this ridiculous mystery. Poor, dear mamma! how she will hate
to be plucked up--like an early radish.' And thereupon Miss Betty
sailed away with her small head tilted skyward.

"But she did manage it, and by Thursday night the party was actually
assembled at 'The Breakers.' There was a sou'easter on that night, but
the drift-wood burned stoutly in the wide chimney-piece, with now and
then a cheerful sputter as a few stray drops sought to immolate
themselves in the green and purple flames.

"'Not so bad--eh, mamma?' said Betty, as she slipped another pillow
behind Mrs. catherwood's back and handed her the last volume of 'Gyp,'
with the pages neatly cut. And then she actually smiled over at me. I
think I am beginning to understand Betty.

"Again I pass over many uneventful days. 'Nothing doing,' as Crawfurd
put it, and laisser-faire was a good enough motto for our side of the
house. The two children, of course, were blissfully happy.

"Three, four, nearly six weeks, and no sign or sound from M'sieur
Balencourt. Not so surprising, after all, seeing that we were living on
an island surrounded on all sides by deep water and no land within a
mile except that little dot called 'The Thimble.' And while we didn't
make any parade of our precautions, Crawfurd and I kept watch and
watch, just as we used to do in the old Alert, on the China station,
twenty-odd y