with
as much self-restraint as I could muster, "we are willing and anxious
to explain ourselves to Lord Ivy, or even to you, but we don't want to
explain to the police? My friend thought you and Lord Ivy were crooks,
escaping. You think WE are crooks, escaping. You both--"

Aldrich snorted contemptuously.

"That's a likely story!" he cried. "No wonder you don't want to tell
THAT to the police!"

From the bow came an exclamation, and Lady Moya rose to her feet.

"Phil!" she said, "you bore me!" She picked her way across the thwart to
where Kinney sat at the stroke oar.

"My brother and I often row together," she said; "I will take your
place."

When she had seated herself we were so near that her eyes looked
directly into mine. Drawing in the oars, she leaned upon them and
smiled.

"Now, then," she commanded, "tell us all about it."

Before I could speak there came from behind her a sudden radiance, and
as though a curtain had been snatched aside, the fog flew apart, and the
sun, dripping, crimson, and gorgeous, sprang from the waters. From the
others there was a cry of wonder and delight, and from Lord Ivy a shriek
of incredulous laughter.

Lady Moya clapped her hands joyfully and pointed past me. I turned and
looked. Directly behind me, not fifty feet from us, was a shelving beach
and a stone wharf, and above it a vine-covered cottage, from the chimney
of which smoke curled cheerily. Had the yawl, while Lady Moya was taking
the oars, NOT swung in a circle, and had the sun NOT risen, in
three minutes more we would have bumped ourselves into the State of
Connecticut. The cottage stood on one horn of a tiny harbor. Beyond it,
weather-beaten shingled houses, sail-lofts, and wharfs stretched cosily
in a half-circle. Back of them rose splendid elms and the delicate spire
of a church, and from the unruffled surface of the harbor the masts
of many fishing-boats. Across the water, on a grass-grown point, a
whitewashed light-house blushed in the crimson glory of the sun. Except
for an oyster-man in his boat at the end of the wharf, and the smoke
from the chimney of his cottage, the little village slept, the harbor
slept. It was a picture of perfect content, confidence, and peace. "Oh!"
cried the Lady Moya, "how pretty, how pretty!"

Lord Ivy swung the bow about and raced toward the wharf. The others
stood up and cheered hysterically.

At the sound and at the sight of us emerging so mysteriously from the
fog, the m