"And along the coast," added Hardress; "the moonlight will last us a bit farther than that. We shall be well away to Portland before you want to go to bed I expect. The _Nadine's_ got to do her best this time, and we've coaled up for a run across the Atlantic at twenty knots. That will be somewhat of an experience for you, marquise, will it not?" "Yes, viscount," she said, with one of those smiles which Miss Chrysie hated so; "it is a very wonderful speed that, and of course it will be an experience." "Then that's settled," said Lady Olive, rising, "we shall start this evening. Now let us go and pack." The _Nadine_, spick and span, and clean as a new pin, was lying alongside the ocean quay at Southampton, her bunkers and half her hold crammed with the finest steaming coal that money could buy, and the steam whistling softly in her pipes. Her second engineer, an exceedingly clever young fellow of twenty-five, whose good-looking face was marred by a pair of too-closely-set greenish-blue eyes, was leaning on the rail a little forward of the foremast, smoking a pipe and gazing down the water with eyes that saw nothing material. Edward Williams was as good a marine engineer as ever went afloat, but unfortunately he was possessed by the idea, too common among his class, that he possessed a creative and inventive genius as well as real cleverness in his profession. He had invented what he considered to be improvement after improvement in marine machinery, and Lord Orrel had at first helped him generously to put them into practical form; but as he did not possess the genius, he believed he had, they had one after another failed to stand the test of practice, and at length both Lord Orrel and his son had closed their pockets and given him to understand that he had better devote himself to his profession and leave inventing alone. This produced the usual effect on such a mind as his. He forgot all that they had done for him, and looked upon them as wealthy men whose selfishness deliberately barred his way to the fame and fortune which ought to be his. Only a month before he had gone to Hardress with the plans of a new type of submarine boat, which he, of course, firmly believed would revolutionise naval warfare. It would only have cost a few hundred pounds to build a model and demonstrate the truth of his theory, but Hardress had kindly but firmly refused to do it. This refusal had soured him utterly, and put him in exactly the frame of mind readiest to succumb to the temptation to commit the only crime of his life. Sophie had heard something of this in conversations at the Court and on board the yacht, and she instantly divined that if she was to find an instrument to work out her scheme she would find it in the disappointed inventor--and she was right.