“Now don’t act as if you were afraid,” whispered Madame, as she put her hand on the latch of the door.  “Go out naturally.  Remember I am my cousin, and you are the boys.”

They passed through the garden into the street, feeling as if some rough hand might at any instant seize them.  But all was still, save the sound of voices in the distance.  When they came in sight of the carriage, the driver began to bum carelessly to himself, “Who goes there?  Stranger, quickly tell!”

“A friend.  Good night,”—­sang the disguised Madame, in the same well-known tune of challenge and reply.  The carriage door was instantly opened, they entered, and the horses started at a brisk pace.  At the house where the driver stopped, they were received as expected guests.  Their disguises were quickly exchanged for dresses from their carpet-bags, which had been conveyed out in Madame’s boxes, and smuggled into the carriage by their invisible protector.  Flora, who was intent upon having things seem a little like a wedding, made a garland of orange-buds for her sister’s hair, and threw over her braids a white gauze scarf.  The marriage ceremony was performed at half past ten; and at midnight Madame was alone with her protegees in the cabin of the ship Victoria, dashing through the dark waves under a star-bright sky.

CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Fitzgerald lingered on the wharf till the vessel containing his treasure was no longer visible.  Then he returned to the carriage, and was driven to his hotel.  Notwithstanding a day of very unusual excitement and fatigue, when he retired to rest he felt no inclination to sleep.  Rosabella floated before him as he had first seen her, a radiant vision of beauty surrounded by flowers.  He recalled the shy pride and maidenly modesty with which she had met his ardent glances and impassioned words.  He thought of the meek and saddened expression of her face, as he had seen it in these last hurried interviews, and it seemed to him she had never appeared so lovely.  He remembered with a shudder what Madame Guirlande had said about the auction-stand.  He was familiar with such scenes, for he had seen women offered for sale, and had himself bid for them in competition with rude, indecent crowds.  It was revolting to his soul to associate the image of Rosa with such base surroundings; but it seemed as if some fiend persisted in holding the painful picture before him.  He seemed to see her graceful figure gazed at by a brutal crowd, while the auctioneer assured them that she was warranted to be an entirely new and perfectly sound article,—­a moss rosebud from a private royal garden,—­a diamond fit for a king’s crown.  And men, whose upturned faces were like greedy satyrs, were calling upon her to open her ruby lips and show her pearls.  He turned restlessly on his pillow with a muttered oath.  Then he smiled as he thought to himself that, by saving her from