oth tickets yourself?"

"They knew nothing about that on board; besides, I hadn't decided when
I took the tickets."

"Then you should have let me know when you did decide. You lay your
plans, and never say a word, and expect me to tumble to them by light
of nature. How was I to know you had anything on?"

I had turned the tables with some effect. Raffles almost hung his head.

"The fact is, Bunny, I didn't mean you to know. You--you've grown such
a pious rabbit in your old age!"

My nickname and his tone went far to mollify me, other things went
farther, but I had much to forgive him still.

"If you were afraid of writing," I pursued, "it was your business to
give me the tip the moment I set foot on board. I would have taken it
all right. I am not so virtuous as all that."

Was it my imagination, or did Raffles look slightly ashamed? If so, it
was for the first and last time in all the years I knew him; nor can I
swear to it even now.

"That," said he, "was the very thing I meant to do--to lie in wait in
my room and get you as you passed. But--"

"You were better engaged?"

"Say otherwise."

"The charming Miss Werner?"

"She is quite charming."

"Most Australian girls are," said I.

"How did you know she was one?" he cried.

"I heard her speak."

"Brute!" said Raffles, laughing; "she has no more twang than you have.
Her people are German, she has been to school in Dresden, and is on her
way out alone."

"Money?" I inquired.

"Confound you!" he said, and, though he was laughing, I thought it was
a point at which the subject might be changed.

"Well," I said, "it wasn't for Miss Werner you wanted us to play
strangers, was it? You have some deeper game than that, eh?"

"I suppose I have."

"Then hadn't you better tell me what it is?"

Raffles treated me to the old cautious scrutiny that I knew so well;
the very familiarity of it, after all these months, set me smiling in a
way that might have reassured him; for dimly already I divined his
enterprise.

"It won't send you off in the pilot's boat, Bunny?"

"Not quite."

"Then--you remember the pearl you wrote the--"

I did not wait for him to finish his sentence.

"You've got it!" I cried, my face on fire, for I caught sight of it
that moment in the stateroom mirror.

Raffles seemed taken aback.

"Not yet," said he; "but I mean to have it before we get to Naples."

"Is it on board?"

"Yes."

"But how--where--who's got it?"