“I am, then, a rich man; no more crusades, no more stale bread and cheap tobacco, no more turning my cuffs and collars and clipping the frayed edges of my trousers.  I am fortunate.  There is a joke, too.  Picard and his friends advanced me five thousand francs for the enterprise.”

“I marvel where they got it!”

“I am sorry that I was rough with you.”

“I bear you not the slightest ill-will.  I never have.  Herman Stueler; I must remember to have them make out the drafts in that name.”

Breitmann appeared to be sleeping again.  After waiting a moment or two, his guardian-angel tiptoed out.

An hour went by.

“Hildegarde, have you any money?”

“Enough for my needs.”

“Will you take half of it?”

“Karl!”

“Will you?”

“No!”

He accepted this as final.  And immediately his gaze became fixed on the bay.  A sleek white ship was putting out to sea.

“They are leaving, Karl,” she said, and the courage in her eyes beat down the pain in her heart.

“In my coat, inside; bring them to me.”  As he could move only his right arm and that but painfully, he bade her open each paper and hold it so that he could read plainly.  The scrawl of the Great Captain; a deed and title; some dust dropping from the worn folds:  how he strained his eyes upon them.  He could not help the swift intake of air, and the stab which pierced his shoulder made him faint.  She began to refold them.  “No,” he whispered.  “Tear them up, tear them up!”

“Why, Karl.”

“Tear them up, now, at once.  I shall never look at them again.  Do it.  What does it matter?  I am only Herman Stueler.  Now!”

With shaking fingers she tipped the tattered sheets, and the tears ran over and down her cheeks.  It would not have hurt her more had she torn the man’s heart in twain.  He watched her with fevered eyes till the last scrap floated into her lap.

“Now, toss them into the grate and light a match.”

And when he saw the reflected glare on the opposite wall, he sank deeper into the pillow.  The woman was openly sobbing.  She came back to his side, knelt, and laid her lips upon his hand.  There was now only a dim white speck on the horizon, and with that strange sea-magic the hull suddenly dipped down, and naught but a trail of smoke remained.  Then this too vanished.  Breitmann withdrew his hand, but he laid it upon her head.

“I am a broken man, Hildegarde; and in my madness I have been something of a rascal.  But for all that, I had big dreams, but thus they go, the one in flames and the other out to sea.”  He stroked her hair.  “Will you take what is left?  Will you share with me the outlaw, be the wife of a disappointed outcast?  Will you?”

“Would I not follow you to any land?  Would I not share with you any miseries?  Have you ever doubted the strength of my love?”