"Miss Jeanne, then," he said. "There are some things which you do not yet understand very well, because you have been brought up differently to most English girls. I have some influence with Mr. De la Borne, and I shall do what I can for you up at the house. But it is very certain that you must not think of leaving your stepmother unless you have some other relative who is willing to take you. A child of your age cannot live alone. It is unheard of." She sighed, and turned away. "Very well, Mr. Andrew," she said. "If you do not wish to be troubled with me I will go back. I am ready when you are." Andrew looked once more out of the window. "We cannot cross just yet," he said. "The tide is coming in very fast, and even here there is a big sea." "It is magnificent," she answered, stealing back to his side. "I only wish that we were outside." "You could not stand up," he answered. "Listen!" The thunder of the incoming waves seemed to fill the room. Even while they stood there a little shower of pebbles and spray were dashed against the windows. Andrew looked anxiously across the estuary and tapped the barometer by his side. "I am afraid," he said, "that you are going to be late for dinner to-night. You are a bona fide prisoner here for an hour or more at least." "I am so glad," she answered. There was a knock at the door. A man entered with a tea-tray. He was in plain clothes and was obviously a servant. Jeanne looked at him in surprise. "Has Mr. Berners left his servant here?" she asked. "For a day or two," Andrew answered hastily. "He may come back, you see, and he went away in a great hurry. Martin, bring another teacup, and make the tea, please." The man set down the tray and bowed. "Very good, sir," he answered. Jeannie watched him disappear, perplexed. Was it because he was so perfectly trained a servant that he addressed the man at her side with the same respect that he would have shown to his own master? "I may stay for tea, may I?" she asked. "That is something, at any rate. I am going to look round at your things. You don't mind, do you?" "Certainly not," he answered. "That big fish on the wall was caught within fifty yards of this island. Those sea-birds, too, were all shot from here." "What strange little creatures!" she murmured. "You seem to find quite a lot of time to read and do other things beside fish, Mr. Andrew," she remarked, as she looked over his bookcases. "You puzzle me very much sometimes. I had no idea," she added, looking at him hesitatingly, "that people who have to work, as you have to, for a living, understood and read books like this." "Ah, well," he answered, "I had perhaps a little more education than some of them."