‘He has gone, safe enough,’ said Ernest; ‘indeed, we watched him go through the Heads from the verandah—a most fortunate migration, in my opinion. He has conferred an immense benefit upon the country by leaving it, which I trust he will confirm by never returning.’ ‘Then you saw him go from here?’ inquired Mr. Frankston. ‘Was he close enough for you to see him?’ ‘Well,’ admitted Ernest, ‘he certainly _was_ close enough to see, and, indeed, to feel; but it’s rather a long story, and if you’re going to smoke this evening, we can have it all out on the verandah.’ ‘I think I must go and see how my visitor is getting on,’ said Antonia; ‘and as I feel tired, I will make my farewell for the evening.’ Was there in the outwardly formal handshaking a sudden instinctive pressure? Was there in the hasty glance a lighting up of hitherto lambent fires in the clear depths of Antonia’s deep-hued eyes—an added, half-remorseful, half-clinging tenderness in the never-omitted caress which marked her evening parting with her father? If so, that father was all unconscious, and the outward tokens were so faint as to have been invisible to all but one deeply interested, near-sighted observer. ‘I am much relieved to find that poor girl Harriet Folleton has not been carried off, after all, by that scoundrel, who has taken us all in so splendidly,’ growled Paul. ‘Of course, now the mischief is done, all kinds of reports are going about the city as to his real character. People say he was a valet, or a courier; others, a supercargo, who ran away with that pretty boat he brought here. He certainly had a very good notion of handling a yacht.’ ‘Let me tell you, then, that it is chiefly owing to your daughter’s courage and unselfish determination to save her friend at all hazards, that Harriet Folleton is not now a captive in yonder yacht, hopelessly lost and disgraced,’ announced Mr. Neuchamp, commencing his broadside. ‘Why, you don’t tell me that the scoundrel came _here_ and attempted any violence?’ said the old man, rising excitedly and performing the regulation quarter-deck walk up and down the verandah, while he dashed his ignited cigar excitedly out over the lawn. ‘If I knew—if I had known this day that he dared to set his foot upon these grounds with a lawless purpose towards any guest of Antonia’s, I’d have followed him to the Line and hanged him at his own yardarm.’ As the old man uttered these very decided sentiments, somewhat at variance with the Navigation Act and international usage, his brow darkened, his eye gleamed with pitiless light, and his arm was raised with a gesture which indicated familiarity with the cutlass and the boarding-pike.