me--this once at all events, or there'll be a tragedy."

"Oh, in that case," was the resigned reply, "I'll come on deck."

Beth walked aft and waited for him, enthroned on the bulwark, with a
coil of rope for her footstool.

When Count Gustav appeared, he looked at her quizzically. "What is the
matter, Beth?" he asked. "What are you boiling with indignation about
now?"

"About that man Gard," Beth replied. "What do you think he was doing
last night? and not for the first time, by his own account. Spying!"

"Spying!" said Bartahlinsky. "Gard, come here."

Gard, who had been anxiously watching them from amidships, approached.

"Now, Beth, what do you mean?" said the Count.

"I mean that I was out sitting on a rail in the church-fields last
night with Alfred Cayley Pounce and Dicksie Richardson talking, and
this man came and listened; and then when I left them, he met me on
the path beside the church, and spoke impudently to me, and would not
let me pass. I know what you thought," she broke out, turning upon
Gard. "You thought I was doing something that I was ashamed of, and
you'd find it out, and have me in your power. But I'll have you know
that I do nothing I'm ashamed of--nothing I should be ashamed to tell
your master about, so you may save yourself the trouble of spying upon
me, Black Gard, as they well call you."

Gard was about to say something, but Count Gustav stopped him
peremptorily. "You can go," he said. "I'll hear what you have to say
later."

Then he sat down beside Beth, and talked to her long and earnestly. He
advised her to give up her rambles with Alfred and Dicksie; but she
assured him that that was impossible.

"Who else have I?" she asked pathetically. "And what am I to do with
my days if they never come into them again?"

"You ought to have been sent to school, Beth, long ago, and I told
your mother so," Count Gustav answered, frowning. "And, by Jove, I'll
tell her again," he thought, "before it's too late."

The encounter with Gard added excitement to the charm of Beth's next
meeting with the boys. It made them all feel rather important. They
discussed it incessantly, speculating as to what the man's object
could have been. Alfred said vulgar curiosity; but Beth suspected that
there was more than that in the manoeuvre; and when Dicksie
suggested acutely that Gard had intended to blackmail them, she and
Alfred both exclaimed that that was it!

They had gone about together all this t