re but for you. What return
can I make for such services as these?"

Mercy placed a chair for her guest near the captain's table, and seated
herself, at some little distance, on an old chest in a corner of the
room. "May I ask you a question?" she said, abruptly.

"A hundred questions," cried Grace, "if you like." She looked at the
expiring fire, and at the dimly visible figure of her companion seated
in the obscurest corner of the room. "That wretched candle hardly gives
any light," she said, impatiently. "It won't last much longer. Can't
we make the place more cheerful? Come out of your corner. Call for more
wood and more lights."

Mercy remained in her corner and shook her head. "Candles and wood are
scarce things here," she answered. "We must be patient, even if we
are left in the dark. Tell me," she went on, raising her quiet voice a
little, "how came you to risk crossing the frontier in wartime?"

Grace's voice dropped when she answered the question. Grace's momentary
gayety of manner suddenly left her.

"I had urgent reasons," she said, "for returning to England."

"Alone?" rejoined the other. "Without any one to protect you?"

Grace's head sank on her bosom. "I have left my only protector--my
father--in the English burial-ground at Rome," she answered simply. "My
mother died, years since, in Canada."

The shadowy figure of the nurse suddenly changed its position on the
chest. She had started as the last word passed Miss Roseberry's lips.

"Do you know Canada?" asked Grace.

"Well," was the brief answer--reluctantly given, short as it was.

"Were you ever near Port Logan?"

"I once lived within a few miles of Port Logan."

"When?"

"Some time since." With those words Mercy Merrick shrank back into her
corner and changed the subject. "Your relatives in England must be very
anxious about you," she said.

Grace sighed. "I have no relatives in England. You can hardly imagine
a person more friendless than I am. We went away from Canada, when my
father's health failed, to try the climate of Italy, by the doctor's
advice. His death has left me not only friendless but poor." She paused,
and took a leather letter-case from the pocket of the large gray cloak
which the nurse had lent to her. "My prospects in life," she resumed,
"are all contained in this little case. Here is the one treasure I
contrived to conceal when I was robbed of my other things."

Mercy could just see the letter-case as Grace held i