“I have been searching everywhere for you two mischief-makers,” said she.  “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.  Heaven only knows how this little experiment will end.  Here is Aunt Maria, usually serene, on the verge of hysterics:  she says he shouldn’t stay in that damp cave another minute.  Here is your father, Irene, organizing relief parties and walking the floor of his tent like a madman.  And here is Uncle Fenelon insane over the idea of getting the poor, innocent man into Canada.  And here is a detective saddled upon us, perhaps for days, and Uncle Fenelon has gotten his boatman drunk.  You ought to be ashamed of yourselves,” she repeated.

Miss Trevor laughed, in spite of the gravity of these things, and so did I.

“Oh, come, Marian,” said she, “it isn’t as bad as all that.  And you talk as if you hadn’t anything to be reproached for.  Your own defence of the Celebrity wasn’t as strong as it might have been.”

By the light of the lantern I saw Miss Thorn cast one meaning look at Miss Trevor.

“What are you going to do about it?” asked Miss Thorn, addressing me.  “Think of that unhappy man, without a bed, without blankets, without even a tooth-brush.”

“He hasn’t been wholly off my mind,” I answered truthfully.  “But there isn’t anything we can do to-night, with that beastly detective to notice it.”

“Then you must go very early to-morrow morning, before the detective gets up.”

I couldn’t help smiling at the notion of getting up before a detective.

“I am only too willing,” I said.

“It must be by four o’clock,” Miss Thorn went on energetically, “and we must have a guide we can trust.  Arrange it with one of Uncle Fenelon’s friends.”

“We?” I repeated.

“You certainly don’t imagine that I am going to be left behind?” said Miss Thorn.

I made haste to invite for the expedition one of the Four, who was quite willing to go; and we got together all the bodily comforts we could think of and put them in a hamper, the Fraction not forgetting to add a few bottles from Mr. Cooke’s immersed bar.

Long after the camp had gone to bed, I lay on the pine-needles above the brook, shielded from the wind by a break in the slope, and thought of the strange happenings of that day.  Presently the waning moon climbed reluctantly from the waters, and the stream became mottled, black and white, the trees tall blurs.  The lake rose and fell with a mighty rhythm, and the little brook hurried madly over the stones to join it.  One thought chased another from my brain.

At such times, when one’s consciousness of outer things is dormant, an earthquake might continue for some minutes without one realizing it.  I did not observe, though I might have seen from where I lay, the flap of one of the tents drawn back and two figures emerge.  They came and stood on the bank above, under the tree which sheltered me.  And I experienced a curious phenomenon.  I heard, and understood, and remembered the first part of the conversation which passed between them, and did not know it.