"Don't you suppose you could make another sketch of the surroundings of that placer as you did at the fort?" "Easily." The Admiral hastily offered the back of a letter and a pencil, and followed with his eyes each mark that Jermyn made. When the sketch was almost complete, Jermyn stopped and asked: "Why do you want this, Admiral?" "For use as a voucher, in case your original should be lost." "Oh, that would be a forgery!" "Nonsense! Can a man forge his own signature? What would you say in answer to that question, if you were member of a court-martial?" "I scarcely know," replied Jermyn slowly, "but--" here he paused long enough to tear the paper into strips, and tear the strips crosswise, "I must give my honor the benefit of the doubt." "Oh, you idiot," exclaimed the old gentleman angrily. "You're worse than an idiot, for you're intimating that I, an officer and gentleman, am counselling a crime." "Forgive me, Admiral. You know very well that I couldn't, for an instant, think such a thing. Still, any man must be ruled by his own conscience." Jermyn went down to the Sandy Hook proving-grounds, and the Admiral spent a miserable day, relieved somewhat by a call upon Kate, to whom he determined to tell the whole story, and to appeal to her, first for Jermyn's sake and then for his own, to help him to get those sketches. He knew women, he thought; Kate was a young woman of unusual balance of mind, so she probably had been sensible enough to wonder on what she and Jermyn would live after they married. They would soon marry, the Admiral was sure; for love, like many other disturbances to which humanity is subject, acts most powerfully where longest delayed or avoided. But, alas, for human courage! The veteran who had led boarding parties and storming parties, could not muster sufficient courage to tell a woman that another woman had been bent upon making a match for her, and that two men, one of whom was the young woman's own lover, had seen the plan in black and white, while Kate herself had no thought of ever becoming Mrs. Jermyn. So he called again at the Highwoods, made a full confession to Trif and her husband, and begged for the sketches. Fortunately, the couple were alone, Harry and Fenie having gone to a dinner which the Trewmans were giving to both happy couples. Phil seemed greatly amused by the story, and said: "So that explains the mystery of those two pictures!" Then, for the first time, he told Trif of meeting Jermyn in Madison Square, and of Jermyn's strange embarrassment on seeing one of the pictures, and how Phil himself had chanced to see the other, only two or three days before the Admiral's call, in Trixy's scrap-book, extracted it, and put the two together to make a pretense of mystery some evening for Trif's bewilderment and his own amusement. "You dreadful fellow!" exclaimed Trif. "The idea of you keeping a secret from me--and for three whole days!"