"And you\'re—Earl of Jura—now," stammered Herries, helplessly, as though that undeniable fact altogether staggered belief.

The ragged scarecrow with the eye-glass nodded, somewhat shamefacedly, and once more made a pitiful effort to straighten his stooping shoulders. Herries looked away, wretchedly, and then, as if understanding something of what must be in his mind, took it upon himself to dismiss the servants, but bidding them remain within call and also to see to it that no word went elsewhere of what they had seen and heard in the banquet-hall.

The rest of the company were regarding the ex-engineer of the Olive Branch with very varied expressions. A sickly pallor had overspread Slyne\'s rigid features as he heard the title by which Herries had addressed that untimeous intruder. Captain Dove, his hands still on the table before him, and crouching as if to spring, was breathing jerkily from between set teeth, like one with a seizure. The Marquis of Ingoldsby\'s narrow forehead was corrugated by a fixed and splenetic frown which kept his eyes and mouth at their very widest. Behind Sallie\'s questioning, compassionate, clouded glance lurked hope, and fear, and a steadfast determination; she was still holding fast the stem of her wine-glass. Justin Carthew looked as if he did not know in the least who or where he was. Mr. Jobling\'s purple visage and pendulous jowl spoke plainly the apoplectic and painful nature of his emotions. Of them all, only the Duchess of Dawn seemed to have preserved any measure of self-possession.

While Herries was giving the butler his orders, she crossed toward the fireplace with a little characteristic, impulsive gesture.

"I hope you haven\'t forgotten me, Torquil?" said she, almost timidly. It could not but hurt her to see what the years had made of the man who, when she had met him last, had been little more than a teasing, mischievous school-boy.

"I knew you at once," he replied, and blinked back at her and cleared his throat uncomfortably. The pinch of his present decayed estate before her once more quickened his numb sense of the grievous injury done him by Captain Dove. He glanced again in Captain Dove\'s direction, but the old man\'s gaze met his absolutely mystified; and his heavy heart began to grow hot again as he recalled how often his cunning taskmaster had cowed him by dint of threats to disclose his unknown identity to the police.

"We all believed you were dead," said the duchess, and he answered her stupidly, at random. His sullen eyes had encountered Slyne\'s, in which he read aright dismay unspeakable and a stunned seeking after some elusive scheme to turn the tables upon him yet. She saw how distrait he was. "But you\'ll tell me by and by something of your adventures," said she. "I just wanted to say how glad I am—that you\'re safe and sound after all. And now I\'ll be off to the drawing-room with Ingoldsby. We\'re only in the way here. I know you must have a great deal to say to your sister."

He started at hearing Sallie so styled. His restless regard had reached her, at the end of the table next him, and he wondered what it could be that had brought such an uncontrollable gleam of relief into her still bewildered eyes.

"I wish you would wait for a little, if you don\'t mind," he answered the duchess. "I\'d like you to stay beside her until—I get rid of some of those others, if you don\'t mind."

She nodded, if rather reluctantly, and turned aside toward Herries as Sallie approached, holding out to the shabby prodigal whose belated return had brought about such a stupefying change in the situation there a tremulous, eager hand.

"You\'re just in time," Sallie said to him in such a glad, warm, grateful voice that even he, who knew very well her generous nature, was almost surprised by her evident pleasure in thus admitting his prior right to the high rank and vast heritage which he believed should have been hers but for him. He was infinitely embarrassed when, before them all, she stooped and touched with her lips the back of the claw-like, toil-stained hand, he had tried hard to withhold from her.
She touched with her lips the back of the toil-stained hand.

And she, having sealed her abdication in such wise, looked up into his flushed face with a swift, shy smile, the flutter of the fledgling hope in her heart stirring softly the priceless lace that outlined her bosom, and the little golden locket that lay therein.

"You\'re my brother—my step-brother, now, aren\'t you, Mr. Brasse?" she asked, almost in a whisper.

"It seems so, Sallie," he answered mechanically, his wandering wits almost beyond his control. Her unconscious use of the name by which she had always known him had brought to his mental vision a blurred picture of her on the bridge of the Olive Branch in a stiff breeze, himself at the fiddley-hatch.

"And everything that might have been mine is yours now?"

"Ours," he corrected, without any interest, as if that was of no consequence. "There should be enough for us both; and, in any case, I need very little—now."

"But it\'s all yours by law, isn\'t it?" she urged. "I must make sure, because—" She looked back, over her shoulder. Mr. Jobling had joined Slyne and Captain Dove; the three of them were engaged, with bated breaths, in a sibilant argument, their heads very close together. Lord Ingoldsby had just risen and was slouching over to the other ingle-nook, where the duchess had made Herries sit down. Only Justin Carthew remained motionless, half turned in his high-backed chair, leaning heavily on one of its arms while he still stared, almost unseeingly, at Sallie and her companion.

"How does that fellow come to be here?" asked the ex-engineer, indicating Carthew with a puzzled nod, and, as Sallie told him what had occurred since she herself had arrived at Loquhariot, his expression grew always more blank again. But when she went on to explain how Slyne had tried to entrap her for his own profit, his dull eyes brightened and began to burn.

"And now," she said at last, "perhaps he won\'t want to marry me—when there\'s nothing to be gained by it. I can\'t tell you how thankful I am that you\'ve come home in time."

Carthew got up from the table then and came limping forward to greet the man whose belated home-coming had made such a difference to him. And Mr. Jobling, evidently fired by his example, followed, to beg an introduction from her ladyship to his lordship.

"I\'ve been acting for Lady Josceline, my lord," he explained very volubly, having thus secured his lordship\'s by no means favourable attention, "just as I would have been most happy to act for your lordship if I had known—" He came to a sudden stop, except for a stifled, explosive hiccough, as Captain Dove shouldered him aside and confronted the ex-engineer of the Olive Branch with his most sleek, benevolent expression.

Slyne was close behind Captain Dove. The pallor had passed from his face. Mr. Jobling apparently did not deem it politic to push in again just then. He choked down his not unnatural indignation and stayed hovering about, very ill at ease, in the background. The others, all but Sallie, had also moved a little away.

But it did not seem to be Captain Dove\'s idea to exchange any quiet confidences with his late chief-engineer. What he had to say was for all ears. Without witnesses he would, no doubt, have conducted himself very differently. Handicapped as he was by their company, he had no recourse but to enlist their sympathies on his side.

"Well, if this doesn\'t beat all for luck!" said he in a tone of the extremest gratification, his visible features wreathed in an unctuous smile. "I don\'t suppose you\'re sorry now that you came ashore when I sent for you, eh! You must admit that I\'ve managed a very pleasant little surprise for you—"

"You\'ve managed nothing—except to put your own neck into a noose at last," retorted Lord Jura. He was standing very erect although he could not control the nervous tremor at the back of his neck. He saw no need now to mince matters with the old man, whose callous effrontery was stirring his sluggish pulses to such a pitch that he could scarcely resist the dire temptation to spring at his throat and choke the evil life out of him there and then. But a light hand laid on his arm diverted him for a moment from any such insane idea, and his unreasoning rage died down a little as he looked round into Sallie\'s appealing eyes.

"How long will it take to get the police here, Herries?" he asked abruptly over one shoulder. And, at that, the arras in the dark corner beside the Pipers\' Port swayed slightly, as though there were some one behind it about to come forth.

"The telegraph-wire is down, my lord," the old factor answered doubtfully, "and—it would maybe be wasting a life to send anyone to attempt the Pass with a message in weather like this. But—till we can safely get word to the police, there are lots of stout lads in Loquhariot that will do your lordship\'s bidding."

"And more on board the Olive Branch that will do mine," Captain Dove interrupted, with a smooth assurance which could not but add to the listeners\' perturbation. "Da Costa has his orders, too. It will be a bad look out for Loquhariot if ever he and his lambs have to come ashore here to............