"I have been unjust. I have been worse than a fool!" She flung back her cloak, and, clasping her hands behind her, man-fashion, fell to pacing the room to and fro. The Commandant stood and stared. Something in her voice puzzled him completely. In its tone, though she accused herself, there vibrated a low note of triumph. She was genuinely remorseful--why, he could not guess. Yet, when she halted before him, he saw that her eyes were glad as well as dim. She held out a hand. "Forgive me, my friend!" "Do you know," stammered the Commandant, as he took it, "I should esteem it a favour to be told whether I am standing on my head or my heels!" How long he held her hand he was never afterwards able to tell; for at its electric touch the room began to swim around him. But this could not have lasted for long; because, as he looked into her eyes, still seeking an explanation, she broke off the half-hysterical laugh that answered him, and pulled her hand away sharply at a sound behind them. Someone was throwing gravel against the window. "Commandant!" a voice hailed from the darkness without. For an instant the two stood as if petrified. Then with a second glance at the window, to make sure that the curtain was drawn, Vashti tip-toed swiftly to the door, catching up the guitar on her way. "Hi! Commandant! Are you waking or sleeping in there?" The Commandant stepped to the curtain. Vashti opened the door and slipped out into the passage. The door closed upon her as he pulled the curtain aside for a second time that night and opened the casement. "Who's there?" "So you _are_ awake?" answered the voice of Mr. Rogers. "May I come in?" And, silence being apparently taken for consent, a foot and leg followed the voice across the window-sill. CHAPTER XXI SUSPICIONS The foot and leg were followed by Mr. Rogers' entire person, and Mr. Rogers, having thus made good his entrance, stood blinking, with an apologetic laugh. "You'll excuse me--but I took it for granted the door was barred, and seeing a glimmer of light in the window here----" "Anything wrong?" asked the Commandant. "Nothing's wrong, I hope"--Mr. Rogers stepped over to the warm fire. "But something's queer." He fished out a pipe from the pocket of his thick pilot coat, filled it, lit up, and sank puffing into the arm-chair from which, a minute ago, Vashti had snatched up her guitar. "Hullo!" he exclaimed, as his eyes fell upon the empty packing-case. "You don't mean to tell me that you've been smuggling?" The Commandant shook his head and laughed, albeit with some confusion. "The steamer brought it this morning. I assure you it held nothing contraband.... But I hope that little game is not starting afresh in the Islands? It gave us a deal of trouble in the old days; and there was quite an outbreak of it, as I remember, some three or four years before you came to us. Old Penkivel"--this was Mr. Rogers' predecessor--"used to declare that it turned his hair gray."