“Madame has a too generous confidence in my competency.” “Ah, it is for you to be generous. A man who can win so great a victory can afford to be kind.” She put her hands forward in the act of supplication, and in doing so the wrap slipped from the shoulder and arm it had so scrupulously hidden. A cloth, dull and blurred with red, was wrapped half-way between the elbow and the shoulder. When he saw that dark patch, his cool composure fell from him like a mantle and he bent forward eagerly, all his perceptions aquiver with sensibility. “Sainte Vierge!” he whispered. “How came you by that?” “It is nothing,” she said, drawing back at his ardor. “A scratch of broken glass. That is all.” He bent to the deck for the erring silk. “I did not know,” he stammered, his voice mellow with sympathy. “I did not know. Forgive me, madame.” “There is nothing to forgive. It is the fortune of war.” “Is it painful? I am something of a chirurgeon. Let me--” He looked her in the face, and then drew back in a mingling of confusion and pride. “It is nothing, I tell you,” she broke in, with a stamp of the foot. “Nothing. I do not even feel it.” And when she had enwrapped it again she lowered her voice until it trembled with the earnestness of her entreaty. “Have pity, monsieur--pity!” The Frenchman had turned away and was looking out into the moonless night. The slender white hand stole faltering forward until it rested upon the coarse sleeve of his coat. “Take me with you, monsieur. Take me aboard the _Saucy Sally_.” And still looking out to sea, he replied, in a voice gruff and rugged, which did not avail to hide a generous courtesy beneath: “It shall be as you wish, madame. Bid the señorita prepare at once.” And in a moment, when he looked again, she was gone.