“You believe all this?” cried Craven Black. “You think I am clumsy enough to permit myself to be tracked? How little you know me! I defy all the detectives in the world to trace me. I did not buy the yacht. A friend bought it in his own name, and provisioned it. The three sailors on board the yacht will never see a newspaper; will not stir out of the loch, and will see no one. I have attached them to me by a free use of money, and I have a hold upon them in knowing their past. If the officers of the law were to trace you to the loch below us, the men would not dare to reveal your whereabouts, for fear of being held as conspirators against your liberty. The two women-servants in this house never stir off the plateau. The cabman I hired to convey us from the London railway station to Gravesend, I discovered, in my conversation with him, was employed for that day alone, to take the place of the cabman who was ill. The fellow told me he was a navvy, bound for a voyage the next day, and he wished he could sail our yacht instead of going out to Australia in a steamer. You see how my tracks are covered? Your help must come from yourself, not from Lord Towyn. I have no more to say at present. If you choose to come to terms, you can send Celeste to my wife at any moment. Permit me to wish you a good-night.” He approached her as if to shake hands. Neva gathered up her effects and retreated into her room. The next instant a key was inserted in the lock, and the bolt was shot home. Neva was in truth a prisoner. “Celeste, you will occupy this room,” said Mrs. Black, to her maid, “and you must sleep with one eye open. Miss Wynde is desperate, and may attempt to pick the lock, or to escape by one of her windows.” “I am not afraid of pursuit,” said Mr. Black meditatively, “but I would like to throw the pursuers upon a wrong scent. I wish I could get Lord Towyn over upon the Continent, with that sharp-eyed Atkins. How can we contrive to give them the impression that we are gone upon a Continental tour?” They pondered the question for many minutes. “I have it,” said Celeste at last. “I have a sister who lives in Brussels, and who works in a milliner’s shop in the Rue Montague de la Cour. You shall write a letter for Mademoiselle, Mr. Black, in her very handwriting, and date the letter Brussels, and I will send it under cover to my sister to be posted at Brussels. Yes, my faith, we have it. One of the sailors shall post my letter, with its inclosure, from Inverness. It is well, is it not?”