“One moment,” said Miss Browne haughtily.  She had never spoken otherwise than haughtily to Mr. Shaw since the episode of the Wise Woman of Dumbiedykes.  “One moment, Jane—­and you, Mr. Tubbs—­”

She drew them aside, and they moved off out of earshot, where they stood with their backs to us and their heads together.

It was my opportunity.  Violet herself had proposed that the original agreement—­the agreement which bound me to ask for no share of the treasure—­should be canceled.  Nothing now was necessary to the ripening of my hopes but to induce Dugald Shaw to immolate himself.  Would he do so—­on my bare word?  There was no time to explain anything—­he must trust me.

I sprang up and dashed over to the pair who stood looking gloomily out to sea.  They turned in surprise and stared down, the two big men, into my flushed up-tilted face.

“Mr. Shaw,” I whispered quickly, “you must do as Miss Browne wishes.”  In my earnestness I laid a hand upon his arm.  He regarded me bewilderedly.

“You must—­you must!” I urged.  “You’ll spoil everything if you refuse!”

The surprise in his face yielded to a look composed of many elements, but which was mainly hard and bitter.

“And still I shall refuse,” he said sardonically.

“Oh, no, no,” I implored, “you don’t understand!  I—­oh, if you would only believe that I am your friend!”

His face changed subtly.  It was still questioning and guarded, but with a softening in it, too.

“Why don’t you believe it?” I whispered unsteadily.  “Do you forget that I owe you my life?”

And at the recollection of that day in the sea-cave the scarlet burned in my cheeks and my head drooped.  But I saw how the lines about his mouth relaxed.  “Surely you must know that I would repay you if I could!” I hurried on.  “And not by—­treachery.”

He laughed suddenly.  “Treachery?  No!  I think you would always be an open foe.”

“Indeed I would!” I answered with a flash of wrath.  Then, as I remembered the need of haste, I spoke in an intense quick whisper.  “Listen—­I can’t explain, there isn’t time.  I can only ask you to trust me—­to agree to what Miss Browne wishes.  Everything—­you don’t dream how much—­depends on it!” For I felt that I would let the treasure lie hidden in the Island Queen forever rather than that Mr. Tubbs should, under the original contract, claim a share of it.

The doubt had quite left his face.

“I do trust you, little Virginia,” he said gently.  “Yes, I trust in your honesty, heaven knows, child.  But permit me to question your wisdom in desiring to enrich our friend Tubbs.”

“Enrich him—­enrich him!  The best I wish him is unlimited gruel in an almshouse somewhere.  No!  What I want is to get that wretched paper of Miss Browne’s nullified.  Afterward we can divide things up as we like—­”