“I am afraid my mother will be sea-sick,” suggested Louis. Fobbington had laid a course which would carry the schooner close-hauled out of the bay, and he called the two sailors, directing them to show the party into the hold. Captain Ringgold and Felix went with them, but just as they had gone down, Mrs. Belgrave called her son. She said she began to feel sick, and she wanted to return to the shore, for the sea outside looked rough and uninviting to her. Before he could join his companions below, the Oxford was passing out of the bay, and the lady was sick in earnest. Louis conducted her to the cabin. As he reached the foot of the companion-way, he discovered, seated at the table in the middle of the apartment, John Scoble! The truth flashed upon him instantly that he was the victim of a conspiracy. Frinks Fobbington was a creature of Scoble, and had lured him on board of the vessel. By this time Mrs. Belgrave was too sick to notice anything; and with her face partially covered with her handkerchief, she had failed to see the only man in the world into whose presence she dreaded to come. Louis saw a stateroom with an open door, into which he conducted his mother, tenderly supporting her on his arm. He assisted her into a berth, and prepared everything in front of it for her use. Then she begged him to leave her by herself, and she should soon be better, for she was never sea-sick more than a few hours. Louis went out into the cabin, closing the door behind him. Scoble was no longer there, and had evidently determined to keep out of sight for a time. There was another stateroom in the cabin; but the door was open, and Scoble was not in it. He looked all about this part of the vessel without being able to find him. Near the companion-way was the pantry, the door of which was open. He looked in and saw a door in the bulkhead, through which he concluded the real captain of the schooner had retired, and he did not care to search for him. He was likely to show himself soon enough. Louis Belgrave did not feel at all like a young millionaire when he found himself in the cabin of the vessel he had proposed to purchase, with his repudiated stepfather in command of her. The sight of his tyrant, as he had come to regard him when they lived together in the old house, was a terrible shock to him. He was disgusted in realizing that he had fallen into a trap, and, what was a hundred times worse, that he had dragged his mother into one. The young man did not apprehend on the part of Scoble any violence to his guardian-mother, as he sometimes called her, and always regarded her. Though he had practically been her guardian in saving her from the conspiracy of her husband, she was not only his legal guardian, but she had been his guardian angel from his birth to the present moment. Whatever he was morally, intellectually, and spiritually, he owed to her; and no human being, not even Blanche Woolridge, could come between her and himself.