"Then you will not suffer professionally by remaining here?"
"Very well. I have telegraphed to my London bankers for a supply of money, which should reach me tomorrow. I want you to arrange for salvage operations. Employ a diver, and hire such other assistance as may be necessary. It is important that a jewelcase in one of my trunks should be recovered, if possible, also five thousand pounds in French and English bank-notes which is in a leather wallet locked in a steamer trunk beneath my husband's bed. That trunk also contains a number of important papers. I shall be glad if it is brought to me unopened, no matter what the expense. Meanwhile make out a list of all that is reasonably owing to the men, and tell them I shall arrange at once for their return to Southampton."
"I've done that already, Ma'am. Mr. Raymond tole me to get busy."
"Ah! That was thoughtful of him. In future, however, take orders from no one but me."
Captain Popple was evidently about to offer a comment, but checked himself in time. "Right you are, Ma'am," he said.
Mrs. Carmac smiled quietly. This outspoken sailor's face was easy to read. Yvonne was present, and he hardly knew what to say.
"You had something else on the tip of your tongue, Captain," she prompted. "Out with it! I have no secrets from this young lady."
"I don't like contradict'ry sailin' orders, Ma'am, an' that's a fact," admitted the skipper. "Mr. Raymond axed me not to do a thing, no matter who gev the word, without consultin' him."
"Yes, Ma'am; but he's able to get about today."
"That simplifies matters. Kindly send him here."
The sailor raised his hand in a clumsy salute, and went out.
"I am not an admirer of Mr. Raymond," said Mrs. Carmac to Yvonne. "He was a useful sort of person to my husband; but he has a Uriah Heep manner which I dislike intensely. Now I shall get rid of him."
For an instant the Breton shrewdness of judgment came uppermost in the girl. "Don't make an unnecessary enemy," she ventured to suggest.
"I simply purpose dismissing him on very generous terms."
"But--have you--forgotten--perhaps you never knew--how wildly you spoke that night in the cabin of the Hirondelle? Mr. Raymond was there too. He may have overheard a good deal."