"Waal, Miss Mortimer," he began, "I reckon you have first right to know----"
Norton looked genuinely uncomfortable, and, probably in consequence, he answered her with a gruffness that sounded brutal.
"It was West. He has been arrested. His own fault entirely. No one would have suspected him if he hadn't been a fool, and given his own show away."
"He wasn't a fool!" Cynthia flashed back fiercely. "He was my friend!"
"I shouldn't be in too great a hurry to claim that distinction," remarked Rudd. "He's about the best-known rascal in the two hemispheres."
But Cynthia did not wait to hear him. She had slipped past, and was gone.
In her own cabin at last, she bolted the door and tore open that packet connected with his profession which he had given her the night before. It contained a roll of notes to the value of a hundred pounds, wrapped in a sheet of notepaper on which was scrawled a single line: "With apologies from the man who swindled you."
There was no signature of any sort. None was needed! When Cynthia finally left her cabin an hour later, her eyes were bright with that brightness which comes from the shedding of many tears.
_Which I Dedicate to the Friend Who Asked for it._
"Yes, but what's the good of it?" said Cynthia Mortimer gently. "I can never marry you."
"You might be engaged to me for a bit, anyhow," he urged, "and see how you like it."
She made a quaint gesture with her arms, as though she tried to lift some heavy weight.
"I am very sorry," she said, in the same gentle voice. "It's very nice of you to think of it, Lord Babbacombe. But--you see, I'm quite sure I shouldn't like it. So that ends it, doesn't it?"
He stood up to his full height, and regarded her with a faint, rueful smile.
"You're a very obstinate girl, Cynthia," he said.
She leaned back in her chair, looking up at him with clear, grey eyes that met his with absolute freedom.
"I'm not a girl at all, Jack," she said. "I gave up all my pretensions to youth many, many years ago."
"No. I was past twenty-one." A curious note crept into her voice; it sounded as if she were speaking of the dead. "It--was just twelve years ago," she said.
"What! Are you past thirty? I had no idea."
"Why, it's eight years since I first met you."