A moment later, when Sir Charles and Mr. Collier stepped out upon the deck, they discovered the two women standing close together, two white, ghostly figures in the moonlight, and as they advanced towards them they saw Mrs. Collier take the girl for an instant in her arms. Sir Charles was asking Miss Cameron how long she thought an immigrant should be made to work for his freehold allotment, when Mr. Collier and his wife rose at the same moment and departed on separate errands. They met most mysteriously in the shadow of the wheel-house. “What is it? Is anything wrong with Florence?” Collier asked, anxiously. “Not homesick, is she?” Mrs. Collier put her hands on her husband’s shoulders and shook her head. “Wrong? No, thank Heaven! it’s as right as right can be!” she cried. “She’s written to him to come back, but he’s never answered, and so--and now it’s all right.” Mr. Collier gazed blankly at his wife’s upturned face. “Well, I don’t see that,” he remonstrated. “What’s the use of her being in love with him now when he can’t be found? What? Why didn’t she love him two years ago when he was where you could get at him--at her house, for instance. He was there most of his time. She would have saved a lot of trouble. However,” he added, energetically, “this makes it absolutely necessary to find that young man and bring him to his senses. We’ll search this place for the next few days, and then we’ll try the mainland again. I think I’ll offer a reward for him, and have it printed in Spanish, and paste it up in all the plazas. We might add a line in English, ‘She has changed her mind.’ That would bring him home, wouldn’t it?” “Don’t be unfeeling, Robert,” said Mrs. Collier. Her husband raised his eyes appealingly, and addressed himself to the moon. “I ask you now,” he complained, “is that fair to a man who has spent six months on muleback trying to round up a prodigal brother-in-law?” That same evening, after the ladies had gone below, Mr. Collier asked Sir Charles to assist him in his search for his wife’s brother, and Sir Charles heartily promised his most active co-operation. There were several Americans at work in the interior, he said, as overseers on the coffee-plantations. It was possible that the runaway might be among them. It was only that morning, Sir Charles remembered, that an American had been at work “repairing his lawn-mower,” as he considerately expressed it. He would send for him on the morrow. But on the morrow the slave of the lawn-mower was reported on the list of prisoners as “missing,” and Corporal Mallon was grieved, but refused to consider himself responsible. Sir Charles himself had allowed the vagrant unusual freedom, and the vagrant had taken advantage of it, and probably escaped to the hills, or up the river to the logwood camp. “Telegraph a description of him to Inspector Garrett,” Sir Charles directed, “and to the heads of all up stations. And when he returns, bring him to me.”