had a few hours' rest. He can
take an alcohol bath and we can all drink wine. It won't hurt us. At ten
o'clock sharp Dr. Browne will begin operating the distilling apparatus
in the laboratory. As a matter of fact, I learned somewhere--at college,
I imagine--that practically pure water may be isolated from wine." He
arose painfully and stretched himself. "I think I'll get a little
much-needed rest. Do the same, Browne--and have a rub down. By Jove,
will you listen to the row my clients are making out there in the woods!
They seem to be annoyed over something."

Outside the walls the islanders were shouting and calling to each other;
rifles were cracking, far and near, voicing, in their peculiarly
spiteful way, the rage that reigned supreme.

As Chase ascended the steps Bobby Browne and his wife came up beside
him.

"Chase," said Browne, in a low voice, his face turned away to hide the
mortification that filled his soul, "you are a man! I want you to know
that I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

"Never mind, old man! Say no more," interrupted Chase, suddenly
embarrassed.

"I've been a fool, Chase. I don't deserve the friendship of any one--not
even that of my wife. It's all over, though. You understand? I'm not a
coward. I'll do anything you say--take any risk--to pay for the trouble
I've caused you all. Send me out to fight----"

"Nonsense! Your wife needs you, Browne. Don't you, Mrs. Browne? There,
now! It will be all right, just as I said. I daresay, Browne, that I
wouldn't have been above the folly that got the better of you. Only--"
he hesitated for a minute--"only, it couldn't have happened to me if I
had a wife as dear and as good and as pretty as the one you have."

Browne was silent for a long time, his arm still about Drusilla's
shoulder. At the end of the long hall he said with decision in his
voice:

"Chase, you may tell your clients that so far as I am concerned they may
have the beastly island and everything that goes with it. I'm through
with it all. I shall discharge Britt and----"

"My dear boy, it's most magnanimous of you," cried Chase merrily. "But
I'm afraid you can't decide the question in such an off-hand, _degage_
manner. Sleep over it. I've come to the conclusion that it isn't so much
of a puzzle as to how you are to _get_ the island as how to get _off_ of
it. Take good care of him, Mrs. Browne. Don't let him talk."

She held out her hand to him impulsively. There was an unfath