The detective was thrown off; he could not understand the girl.  Renie had confessed that she had originally betrayed him to the smugglers, and then, when danger threatened, she came and warned him, and her warning failing, she came tripping to him once more, barefooted, ragged, and beautiful, and held out to him an alluring bait.

There was no misunderstanding the purport of her words.  She betrayed the fact that she knew his full purpose, and her words implied that she was ready to throw him a larger and more certain game.  Her wards were, “There’s better game for you ashore!”

“Are you, my friend, Renie?”

“Yes; I am your friend.”

“If you are my friend, why did you betray me to the smugglers?”

“I was not your friend then, I am your friend now.  I can serve you and you can serve me!  Your life is in danger.  You will never return if you go out in the yacht to-night.  I had prepared you for your doom, but now I will save you, and again I tell you that there’s better game ashore.”

“Why should I trust you! do you not confess to having betrayed me?”

“I only knew you then as a government detective; now I know you are a man.”

“You must have made the latter discovery very suddenly.”

“I did.”

“When?”

“When you knocked Sol Burton down; that man meant me harm.  I could have defended myself against him, but a greater peril menaces me to-night.”

“What peril menaces you?”

“I have no confidant in the world; shall I make one of you?”

“Yes.”

“My confidence may get you into trouble.”

“How sad.”

“You are a brave, noble man; you will desire to act as my champion.”

“You are a strange girl.”

“Yes; mine is a hard lot; I am a waif; I am nothing; I am all outcast; a thing, and yet—­”

The girl ceased.  She had spoken with a wild. energy, and she had looked ravishingly beautiful while talking.

“And yet, what?” said the detective interrogatively.

“My heart is full of all the ambitions that might fill the heart of a girl born in the midst of splendor and luxury; and although the companion of smugglers, I love only what is pure and beautiful; I cherish the fondest dreams, and yet—­”

Again the detective supplemented: 

“Well, go on.”

“I am a poor, ragged, barefooted girl, the daughter of a boat-keeper, and that is not all!”

“Tell me all.”

“Shall I?”

“Yes.”

“I had reason to suppose that my pretended father was my friend; one thing is certain no millionaire ever guarded a fair daughter with more tenderness than he has guarded me.  He has sent me to school, and has permitted me to become educated far above my station.  You know in this land that is an easy thing for a poor man to do, but within a few days strange suspicions have crossed my mind; no man even among the roughest of them ever dared insult me.  Tom Pearce would have killed the man who dared bring one faint flush to my cheek with his vile tongue! but alas!  I fear—­fear.”