as
it's long," said Jenny.

"Jenny!" cried Nelly.

"And, oh!" said Jenny, "there is one thing I didn't tell you. But you'll
keep it secret? Promise me you'll keep it secret. I'm to meet him again
by appointment this very night."

"But, Jenny!"

"Yes, in the garden of this house--by the waterfall at eight o'clock.
I'll slip out after dinner in my cloak with the hood to it."

"Jenny Crow!"

"It's our last chance, it seems. The poor fellow sails at midnight, or
tomorrow morning, or to-morrow night, or the next night, or sometime.
So you see he's not going away without saying good-by to somebody. I
couldn't help telling you, Nelly. It's nice to share a secret with a
friend one can trust, and if he _is_ another woman's husband--"

Nell had risen to her feet with her face aflame.

"But you mustn't do it," she cried. "It's shocking, it's
horrible--common morality is against it."

Jenny looked wondrous grave. "That's it, you see," she said. "Common
morality always _is_ against everything that's nice and agreeable."

"I'm ashamed of you, Jenny Crow. I am; indeed, I am. I could never have
believed it of you; indeed, I couldn't. And the man you speak of is no
better than you are, and all his talk of loving the wife is hypocrisy
and deceit; and the poor woman herself should know of it, and come down
on you both and shame you--indeed, she should," cried Nelly, and she
flounced out of the room in a fury.

Jenny watched her go and thought to herself. "She'll keep that
appointment for me at eight o'clock to-night by the waterfall."
Presently she heard Mrs. Quiggin with a servant of the hotel
countermanding the order for the carriage at eleven, and engaging it
instead for the extraordinary hour of nine at night. "She intends to
keep it," thought Jenny.

"And now," she said, settling herself at the writing-table; "now for the
_other_ simpleton."

"Tell D. Q.," she wrote, addressing Lovibond; "that E. Q. goes home by
carriage at nine o'clock to-night, and that you have appointed to meet
her for a last farewell at eight by the waterfall in the gardens of
Castle Mona. Then meet _me_ on the pier at seven-thirty."

CHAPTER VIII.

Lovibond received this message while sitting at breakfast, and he caught
the idea of it in an instant. Since the supper of the night before he
had been pestered by many misgivings, and troubled by some remorse.
Capt'n Davy was bent on going away. Overwhelmed by a sense of what he
took to b