"I don't rightly understand," he said sturdily, "this 'rotas' business. But it seems to me pretty plain that the estate never belonged to my late brother-in-law. Now what I say is, if the place belongs by right to Miss Challoner she'll take it. If it don't; well, then it don't, and she can't accept it as a present from anybody. Much obliged to you all the same." The Count laughed pleasantly. "My dear sir, it is not a present." The Captain stuffed his hands very deeply into his pockets. "Then it's worse--it's charity. And she has no need of that. Thank ye all the same," he replied. He stared straight in front of him with a vague and rather painful suggestion of incapability that sometimes came over him. He was wondering whether he was doing right in this matter. "If," he added, half to himself, as a sort of afterthought on the crying question of ways and means--"if it comes to that, I can go to sea again. There's plenty would be ready to give me a ship." The Count was still smiling. "There is no question," he said, "of charity. What has Miss Challoner done that I should offer her that? I am in ignorance as to her affairs. I do not know the extent of her income." "As far as we can make out," said Eve gently, "there is nothing. But I can work. I thought that my knowledge of Spanish might enable me to make a living." "No," said Captain Bontnor, "I'm d--- I mean I should not like you to go governessing, my dear." The Count was apparently reflecting. "I have a compromise to propose," he said, addressing himself to Eve. "If we place the property in the hands of a third person--you know the value of land in Majorca--to farm and tend; if at the end of each year the profits be divided between us?" But Eve's suspicions were aroused, and her woman's instinct took her further than did Captain Bontnor's sturdy sense of right and wrong. "I am afraid," she said, rising from her chair, "that I must refuse. I--I think I understand why papa always spoke of you as he did. I am very grateful to you. I know now that you have been trying to give me D'Erraha. It was a generous thing to do--a most generous thing. I think people would hardly believe me if I told them. I can only thank you; for I have no possible means of proving to you how deeply I feel it. Somehow"--she paused, with tears and a sad little smile in her eyes--"somehow it is not the gift that I appreciate so much as--as your way of trying to give it." The Spaniard spread out his two hands in deprecation. "My child," he murmured gently, "I have not another word to say." CHAPTER VIII. THE DEAL. Oh, the little more, and how much it is! And the little less, and what worlds away!