“What has happened, your Excellency?” she asked anxiously.

“Happened?” the young man managed to say.  “Nothing.”

“Then why has the yacht’s course been changed?  I can tell by the stars from my cabin window that we are not headed at all in the same direction we were going—­”

He tried to speak unconcernedly:  “Just changed for a short time on account of some reefs and the currents!  Go to sleep,” he commanded, “and leave the problems of navigation to others.”

“Sleep? Mon Dieu!  If I only could—­”

Mr. Heatherbloom dared talk no more, so rang off.  The prince might have been capable of such bruskness.  Sonia Turgeinov had not seemed to suspect anything wrong; she had merely been inquisitive, and had taken it for granted the nobleman was at the other end of the wire.  Mr. Heatherbloom strode restlessly to and fro.  Seconds went by—­minutes.  He counted the tickings of the clock—­suddenly wheeled sharply.

* * * * *

The young girl stood in the doorway—­he had heard and now saw her.  She came forward quickly, though uncertainly; in the dim light she looked like a shadow.  He drew in his breath.

“Miss—­” he began, then stopped.

Her gaze rested on him, almost indistinguishable on the other side of the salon.

“What does it mean?  Who are you?” She spoke intrepidly enough but he saw her slender form sway.

Who was he?  About to explain in a rush of words, Mr. Heatherbloom hesitated.  To her he had been, of course, but a conspirator of the Russian woman in the affair.  Miss Van Rolsen had deemed him culpable; the detective had been sure of it.  Would Miss Dalrymple think more leniently of him than mere unprejudiced people, those who knew less of him than she?  His very presence on the yacht, although somewhat inexplicably complicated in recent occurrences, was per se a primal damning circumstance.  But she spared him the necessity of answering.  She divined now from his blackened features what his position on the yacht must be.  He was only a poor stoker, but—­

“You are a brave fellow,” cried Betty Dalrymple, “and I’ll not forget it.  You interfered—­I remember—­”

“A brave fellow!” It was well he had not betrayed himself.  Let her think that of him, for the moment.  A poignant mockery lent pain to the thrill of her words.

“You rushed in, struck him.  What then?”

“He won’t play the bully and scoundrel again for some time!” burst from Mr. Heatherbloom.  His tones were impetuous; once more he seemed to see what he had seen during those last moments on the deck—­when he had been unable to restrain himself longer—­and had yielded to a single hot-blooded impulse.  “The big brute!” he muttered.

She seemed to regard him in slight surprise.  “Where is he?  What has become of him?”

“He is safe—­”

“You mean you conquered him, beat him—­you?” Her voice thrilled.