Around this telegram a group of grave-faced men stood in silence, or with muttered words of surprise. "The Croonah!" they said, "the Croonah!" as if a pillar of their faith had fallen. For once no one had a theory: no carpet mariner could explain this thing. Against the jamb of the window, behind them all, Willie Carr stood leaning. "Done anything on her?" some one asked him. "Yes, bad luck," he answered. "Had friends on her, too." It was a long and expansive telegram, giving the list of the lost, twenty-nine in all, and among the names were mentioned Mrs. Ingham-Baker and her daughter. "Ship in charge of second officer," said the telegram. And lower down, at the foot of the fatal list: "Second officer picked up unconscious. Doing well." Suddenly Willie Carr moved, and, turning his back somewhat hastily, looked out of the window. Fitz had just come into the dreary, fateful little room, conducted thither by the Admiralty agent. He read the telegram carefully from beginning to end. "Luke on the Burlings!" he muttered, as he turned to go. "Luke! I can't understand it. He must have been mad!" And after all Fitz only spoke the truth; but it was a madness to which we are all subject. CHAPTER XIII. AT D'ERRAHA AGAIN. There is no statute so sublime As Love's in all the world; and e'en to kiss The pedestal is still a better bliss Than all ambitions. Three years later Eve was sitting on the terrace of the Casa d'Erraha. It was late autumn, and we who live in Northern latitudes do not quite realise what the autumn of Southern Europe is. Artists and others interested in the beauties of nature love a dry summer for the autumn that is sure to follow it. In Spain and in the islands of the Mediterranean every summer is dry, and every autumn is beautiful. The Casa d'Erraha has not changed in any way--nothing changes in the Balearics. The same soft Southern odours creep up from the valley to battle with the strong resinous scent of the pines that crown the mountains. Eve had been a year in D'Erraha--the whole of her married life. The Count de Lloseta placed the house at their disposal for the honeymoon. Fitz and she came to stay a month; they had remained twelve. It is often so in Majorca. A number of Spaniards came six hundred years ago--nine families; the nine names are there to-day. Fitz had taken D'Erraha on the Minorcan rotas lease, so the old valley, the old house, was his. Eve was not alone on the terrace, for a certain small gentleman, called Henry Cyprian FitzHenry, a prospective sailor, lay in a pink and perfect slumber on her lap. Henry Cyprian fully appreciated the valley of repose. Eve was reading a letter--a lamentable scrawl, by the way--obviously the work of a hand little used to the pen. "My dearie," the letter ran; and it bore the address--Malabar Cottage, Somarsh, Suffolk.