“I found out, through my maid, who arrived today, that some one of the kidnapping party had been clever enough to send a false message to the hotel, explaining my sudden departure.”

“I see, I see,” said Aleck, going over the story in his mind.  And presently, “Where does Hand come in?  And how did Jim happen to be aboard the Jeanne D’Arc?”

“Hand was some sort of henchman to Monsieur Chatelard, I believe.  And he told me that your cousin was picked up in New York harbor, swimming for life, it appeared.  No one seemed to know any more.”

Aleck stopped short, looked at Agatha, pursed his lips for a whistle and remained silent.  They had arrived at the porch steps, and were tacitly waiting for the doctors to descend and give them, if possible, some encouragement for the coming night.  But the story of the Jeanne D’Arc had grown more complicated than Aleck had anticipated, and much was yet to be explained.  Aleck was slow, as always, in thinking it through, but he figured it out, finally, to a certain point, and expressed himself thus:  “That’s the way with your steady fellows; they’re all the bigger fools when they do jump.”

“Pardon me, I didn’t catch—­”

“Oh, nothing,” said Aleck, half irritably.  “I only said Jim needed a poke, like that heifer over in the next field.”

Agatha understood the boyish irritation, cloaking the love of the man.  “You may be able to get more information about your cousin from Mr. Hand,” she said.  “He would be likely to know as much as anybody.”

“Well, however it happened, he’s here now!”

“Though if it had not been for his fearful struggle for me, he would not have been so ill,” said Agatha miserably.  Aleck, with one foot on the low step of the piazza, stopped and turned squarely toward her.  His face was no less miserable than Agatha’s, but behind his wretchedness and anxiety was some masculine reserve of power, and a longer view down the corridors of time.  He held her eye with a look of great earnestness.

“I love old Jim, Miss Redmond.  We’ve been boys and men together, and good fellows always.  But don’t think that I’d regret his struggle for you, as you call it, even if it should mean the worst.  He couldn’t have done otherwise, and I wouldn’t have had him.  And if it’s to be a—­a home run—­why, then, Jim would like that far better than to die of old age or liver complaint.  It’s all right, Miss Redmond.”

Aleck’s slow words came with a double meaning to Agatha.  She heard, through them, echoes of James Hambleton’s boyhood; she saw a picture of his straight and dauntless youth.  She held out to Aleck a hand that trembled, but her face shone with gratitude.

Aleck took her hand respectfully, kindly, in his warm grasp.  “Besides,” he said simply, “we won’t give up.  He’s got a fighting chance yet.”

CHAPTER XVII