"My God!" Lewis Granger thought to himself, "he looks as once he might have looked at a comrade across the mess-cabin table; as he has never looked yet at me before. And--and--I am to be made acquainted with his wife!" Geoffrey held out his hand to Granger when he reached the deck, noting as he did that the man had come as a gentleman to visit a lady. He was clad now in a quiet but good black costume; he was also clean-shaven and neat, which he had not been before. His wig was new and freshly powdered, and his lace was faultless. A different person this from the one who sat day by day in Jamaica Court, consigning drunkards and kidnapped men to their fate. "Granger, I sent for you to tell you some news that has come to me. Through my wife, who has heard it from a lady--from----" "Sophy!" the other whispered, divining all--or, perhaps it was not a whisper, his lips alone forming the word, though uttering no sound. While as they did so, he turned white as death. "Yes. She has heard--her husband has heard--strange news. Nay, Granger, be steady," he said, breaking off as he saw the other put out his hand and touch a gun-carriage as though he feared to fall. "What has--she--heard?" the latter asked a moment later, his voice almost inaudible. "That--that--we who sat in judgment on you--that--that--all were wrong. I think it can be proved." "It is too late," Granger said. "Too late. I have fallen too low. Do you know that since it all happened I--God help me!--have been drinking myself to death? That, now I have avenged myself on the man who ruined me, I shall do so even more furiously? To end all." "No! No! Think! Think still on what may be. If--if their Lordships are but satisfied that you were misjudged--I do not know--but--perhaps--it might be possible in these times of war to reinstate you. I do not know, I repeat. But it may be." "Could that restore to me the woman I loved--the woman whom, Heaven help me, I love madly still? Can anything do that?" "No," Geoffrey answered, his tone low yet full of sympathy. "No. Nothing can do that. But it might make her happy, might ease some of her pain. If she could know that you were righted in the world's eyes, if she knew that the shame which has covered you was swept away for ever--could not that make her happy?" "It would perhaps make our lot easier to bear," Granger answered. Then in a clearer voice, he said, "I knew that Lady Barry and Sophy--had been friends from girlhood. That was one, though but one reason why I helped Anne to ensnare that scheming scoundrel." "For that at least I thank you--for punishing him for his vile and wicked insolence. Now, tell me, did he in truth design to put her--great heavens! to think of it--on board the _Nederland?_"