Then he told the girl a pretty tender tale, that he had loved Mrs. Staines when she was Miss Lusignan, had thought himself beloved in turn, but was rejected; and now, though she was a widow, he had not the courage to court her, her heart was in the grave.  He spoke in such a broken voice that the girl’s good-nature fought against her little pique at finding how little he was smitten with her, and Falcon soon found means to array her cupidity on the side of her good-nature.  He gave her a five-pound note to buy gloves, and promised her a fortune, and she undertook to be secret as the grave, and say certain things adroitly to Mrs. Staines.

Accordingly, this young woman omitted no opportunity of dropping a word in favor of Falcon.  For one thing, she said to Mrs. Staines, “Mr. Falcon must be very fond of children, ma’am.  Why, he worships Master Christie.”

“Indeed!  I have not observed that.”

“Why, no, ma’am.  He is rather shy over it; but when he sees us alone, he is sure to come to us, and say, ‘Let me look at my child, nurse;’ and he do seem fit to eat him.  Onst he says to me, ’This boy is my heir, nurse.’  What did he mean by that, ma’am?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is he any kin to you, ma’am?”

“None whatever.  You must have misunderstood him.  You should not repeat all that people say.”

“No, ma’am; only I did think it so odd.  Poor gentleman, I don’t think he is happy, for all his money.”

“He is too good to be unhappy all his life.”

“So I think, ma’am.”

These conversations were always short, for Rosa, though she was too kind and gentle to snub the girl, was also too delicate to give the least encouragement to her gossip.

But Rosa’s was a mind that could be worked upon, and these short but repeated eulogies were not altogether without effect.

At last the insidious Falcon, by not making his approaches in a way to alarm her, acquired her friendship as well as her gratitude; and, in short, she got used to him and liked him.  Not being bound by any limit of fact whatever, he entertained her, and took her out of herself a little by extemporaneous pictures; he told her all his thrilling adventures by flood and field, not one of which had ever occurred, yet he made them all sound like truth; he invented strange characters, and set them talking; he went after great whales, and harpooned one, which slapped his boat into fragments with one stroke of its tail; then died, and he hung on by the harpoon protruding from the carcass till a ship came and picked him up.  He shot a lion that was carrying off his favorite Hottentot.  He encountered another, wounded him with both barrels, was seized, and dragged along the ground, and gave himself up for lost, but kept firing his revolver down the monster’s throat till at last he sickened him, and so escaped out of death’s maw; he did not say how he had fired in the air, and ridden