“Indeed I think there was,” she replied, quickly.  “None of us has any idea how it happened.  Let me tell you about our party.  You see, there are three college chums, Orrin and two friends, Bertram Traynor and Donald Gage.  They were all on a cruise down here last winter, the year after they graduated.  It was in San Juan that Orrin first met Mr. Dominick, who was the purser on the Antilles—­ you know, that big steamer of the Gulf Line that was burned last year and went down with seven million dollars aboard?”

Kennedy nodded to the implied query, and she went on:  “Mr. Dominick was among those saved, but Captain Driggs was lost with his ship.  Mr. Dominick had been trying to interest some one here in seeking the treasure.  They knew about where the Antilles went down, and the first thing he wanted to do was to locate the wreck exactly.  After that was done of course Mr. Dominick knew about the location of the ship’s strong room and all that.”

“That, of course, was common knowledge to any one interested enough to find out, though,” suggested Kennedy.

“Of course,” she agreed.  “Well, a few months later Orrin met Mr. Dominick again, in New York.  In the mean time he had been talking the thing over with various people and had become acquainted with a man who had once been a diver for the Interocean Marine Insurance Company—­Owen Kinsale.  Anyhow, so the scheme grew.  They incorporated a company, the Deep Sea Engineering Company, to search for the treasure.  That is how Orrin started.  They are using his yacht and Mr. Dominick is really in command, though Mr. Kinsale has the actual technical knowledge.”

She paused, but again her feelings seemed to get the better of her.  “Oh,” she cried, “I’ve been afraid all along, lately.  It’s dangerous work.  And then, the stories that have been told of the ship and the treasure.  It seems ill-fated.  Professor Kennedy,” she appealed, “I wish you would come and see us.  We’re not on the yacht just now.  We came ashore as soon as we arrived back, and Asta and Orrin are at the Palace Hotel now.  Perhaps Orrin can tell you more.  If you can do nothing more than quiet my fears—­”

Her eyes finished the sentence.  Norma Sanford was one of those girls who impress you as quite capable of taking care of themselves.  But in the presence of the tragedy and a danger which she felt but could not seem to define, she felt the need of outside assistance and did not hesitate to ask it.  Nor was Kennedy slow in responding.  He seemed to welcome a chance to help some one in distress.

We found Everson and his young wife at the hotel, quite different now from the care-free adventurers who had set out only a few days before to wrest a fortune from chance.

I had often seen portraits of the two Sanford sisters in the society pages of the papers in the States and knew that the courtship of Orrin Everson and Asta Sanford had been a true bit of modern romance.