At first he did not dare to raise his eyes to the slim girlish figure standing there, his emotion being too great. Nor, if he saw it, had he dared to take the hand held out to him, but dropped a moment later at its owner's side.

But then, at last, he lifted his bowed head and gazed at her, seeing at one glance that she also was looking full at him. Seeing, too, that the sweet, delicate mouth was trembling, and that the pure, clear eyes were welling over with tears. And he observed also that, as he became witness of her emotion and deep sympathy for him and his despair, she turned her face away, while, moving towards a chair, she made a sign for him to also be seated.

"God bless you," she heard him mutter in a low, deep voice. "God bless you for your womanly compassion."

"Mr. Granger," she said a moment later, and still the sweet mouth trembled and her eyes were full of tears, "I have sent for--asked you to come to me--because I know so much of your past--your hopes. So much, too, of your unhappiness. Oh! Mr. Granger, I was Sophy Jervis's greatest friend."

"I know it," he murmured. "I know it. She told you all: Of my love--nay--it was not love, but idolatry!--of its too bitter ending. Though it is not, never can be ended."

"Ah! Mr. Granger, now you must live for other things. Live to see your wrongs redressed, your honour restored, your name cleared. You have heard from my husband that there is proof of your innocence."

"Yes," he said. "Yes, I have heard." But, still with his head bent, he whispered the same words he had said to Sir Geoffrey outside on the quarter-deck, "It is too late."

"No. No. It is not too late. Geoffrey and I have talked together, and to-morrow he will go to see their Lordships. Oh! Mr. Granger, if you could return to your old calling, if you could once more serve the King in these troublous times, even in a subordinate position, yet with hope before you, would you not do so? Would you not lead a different life?"

"God knows I would, bankrupt as are all my hopes, all my future. Yet--you are aware of what I have been? Of what I am?"

"Yes, I know," and, although he could not see it, there was in her face a look of sublime pity for him. Pity that this man, still young and handsome--how handsome he must have been when first he won Sophy's love she could well understand, even though judging only of him now as he sat before her in his desolation and abasement!--should have fallen to what he had.

"There is," he went on, "no baser thing in all this world than he who traffics in his fellow-men. Yet I elected to do it in my despair and bitterness. I might have earned a living otherwise, but this consorted with what I was, with what I had become."

"It is not too late. Will you not leave this life for--for--in memory of Sophy?"

"Yes," he whispered, "if you bid me do so for her sake--her memory. Yes. If my honour is cleared, but not otherwise, for otherwise it would be useless. If Sir Geoffrey, or any other captain, will take me, I will go back, even though as a seaman before the mast. I will do it for her sake, in return for your gracious pity of me."

"Thank God!" she cried. "Oh, thank God!" Then she rose and went to the 'scrutoire and, opening it, took out the packet of letters that she had shown her husband. "Read them; do with them what you will. Read them now, if you desire." Whereon she put the little parcel in his hand, and, leaving him alone, went into the next cabin.

"My love, my lost love," he murmured, as he glanced at them hurriedly, not knowing that she had gone away to give him ample time for their perusal. "My sweet. And we are parted for ever. For ever! To all eternity. Nothing can bring you back to me."

That he had wept she knew when she returned, yet a man's tears for her whom he has loved and lost need no pardon from another woman's heart; and so she gently bade him take the letters and keep them, extorting only from him a promise that he would in no way endeavour to communicate with Lady Glastonbury.

"For that," she said, "must never be. Neither sorrow nor trouble must ever come to her again. Have I your promise?"

"On my word of honour. As a man--who was once a gentleman--I swear it, yet, oh God! it is hard. Hard to think that I can look upon her handwriting again and the words that are not addressed to me, although concerning me. It is so long," he added, his voice deep and broken, "since a line has come from her. Yet I have promised, and I will keep my word."

"I know it. I take and believe your word."

"But," Granger continued, "if--when you write to her, you could tell her that--that--born of these letters," and he touched his breast as he spoke, he having placed them there, "has come the promise of a better life for me--a life loveless, but no longer smirched and blemished--then I know she would be happier. If you could promise that!"

"I will do it," Ariadne answered, the tears again rushing to her eyes, and all her emotions thrilling at the sorrow and despair of the man before her. "I will do it."

And, now, Granger turned away, knowing there was no more to be said, yet inwardly blessing her who had that day been as a ministering angel to him.

"Farewell, madam," he said; "I cannot thank you--but--but----" Then, seeing that now she held out her hand again to him, and in such a manner that this time he could not fail to perceive her action, he took it in his own. And, o'er-mastered by her womanliness and supreme sympathy, he raised it to his lips.

"God bless and keep you and yours," he whispered again as he had whispered before; "God bless you for your sweet compassion."

* * * * * * *

Outside, Sir Geoffrey Barry was still engaged with the manifold duties pertaining to a ship which was soon to take part in a war that would doubtless be long, and must be deadly--as was and is ever the case when England and France contend for mastery. Already many things on deck were being stowed away which, when the time came, would be encumbrances. The cutter, too, had just come off from shore, bringing with it, this time, some willing sailors. Sailors who, having been paid off from a disabled privateer, and having spent all their money on sickening debauches on shore, were only too ready to again go to sea and earn some more. A fine band of brawny, dissolute men were these whom George Redway--now installed as captain of the cutter--brought on board with him; men who on shore were nothing but maddened and intoxicated devils, but who, when the enemy hove in sight and when they were at close quarters, would become heroes, nay, almost demigods. For then the old English blood became roused to its fullest and best; then woe betide those who encountered these men.

"A brisk crew of se............