The admiral's fury was boundless, and his utterances were touched here and there by strong sailor expressions. The scoundrel! The black-leg! And he had trusted him without reservation. He wanted to start at once. Laura finally succeeded in calming him, and the cold reason of M. Ferraud convinced him of the folly of haste. There was a comic side to the picture, too, but they were all too serious to note it; the varied tints of the dressing-gowns, the bath-slippers and bare feet, the uncovered throats, the tousled hair, the eyes still heavy with sleep. Every one of the party was in Ferraud's room, and their voices hummed and murmured and their arms waved. Only one of them did Ferraud watch keenly; Hildegarde. How would she act now? Fitzgerald's head still rang, and now his mind was being tortured. Laura in danger from this madman? No, over his body first, over his dead body. How often had he smiled at that phrase; but there was no melodrama in it now. Her liberty and perhaps her honor! His strong fingers worked convulsively; to put them round the blackguard's throat! And to do nothing himself, to wait upon this Frenchman's own good time, was maddening. "Your head is all right now?" as she turned to follow the others from the room. "It was nothing." He forced a smile to his lips. "I'm as fit as a fiddle now; only, I'll never forgive myself for letting him go. Will you tell me one thing? Did he ever offend you in any way?" "A woman would not call it an offense," a glint of humor in her eyes. "Real offense, no." "He proposed to you?" The suppressed rage in his tone would have amused if it hadn't thrilled her strangely. "It would have been a proposal if I had not stopped it. Good night." He could not see her eyes very well; there was only one candle burning. Impulsively he snatched at her hand and kissed it. With his life, if need be; ay, and gladly. And even as she disappeared into the corridor the thought intruded: Where was the past, the days of wandering, the active and passive adventures, he had contemplated treasuring up for a club career in his old age? Why, they had vanished from his mind as thin ice vanishes in the spring sunshine. To love is to be borne again. And Laura? She possessed a secret that terrified her one moment and enraptured her the next. And she marveled that there was no shame in her heart. Never in all her life before had she done such a thing; she, who had gone so calmly through her young years, wondering what it was that had made men turn away from her with agony written on their faces! She would never be the same again, and the hand she held softly against her cheek would never be the same hand. Where was the tranquillity of that morning? Fitzgerald found himself alone with Ferraud again. There was going to be no dissembling; he was going to speak frankly. "You have evidently discovered it. Yes, I love Miss Killigrew, well enough to die for her."