dorothy sat gazing over that charming gulf, charming alike for its scenery and its oysters, the gulf of arcachon. she gazed on it without seeing it; her beautiful face was clouded, and her brow was puckered in a wondering perplexity.

tinker sat on the ground near her, his chin on his knees, observing her with a sympathetic understanding which would have disquieted her not a little, had she not been too busy with her thoughts to notice it.

they were still and silent for a long while, until she sighed; then he said, with unfeigned sadness, "i'm beginning to think he never will."

"who never will what?" said dorothy, awaking from her reflections, and extremely disconcerted by the exactness with which tinker's remark echoed them.

"my father—ask you to marry him," said tinker succinctly.

"tinker!" cried dorothy faintly, and she flushed a very fine red.

"it's all very well to say 'tinker!' like that," he said, shaking his head very wisely. "but it's much better to look at things straight, don't you know? you often get a little forrarder that way."

"you are a dreadful little boy," said dorothy with conviction.

"yes, yes; i'm not blind," said tinker patiently. "but the point is, that my father is ever so much in love with you, and he'll never ask you to marry him, because you're too rich. i'm sure i've given you every chance," he added with a sigh.

"you have?" said dorothy, gasping.

"yes; i'm always seeing that no one makes a third when you and he are together—on moonlit nights and picnics, and so on, don't you know?"

dorothy laughed, in spite of her discomfort, at this frank discussion of her secret. "but this is inveterate match-making," she said. "why do you do it?"

"oh, i think it would be a good thing. you both want it badly, and you'd get on awfully well together. besides, you're neither of you as cheerful as you used to be, and i don't like it; it bothers me."

"it's very good of you to let it," said dorothy, smiling.

"not at all. and elsie and i would have a settled home, too. it's very funny; but sometimes i get tired of living in hotels."

"i'm sure you do," said dorothy with sympathy.

"well, have you got any idea how it can be worked?"

"no!" cried dorothy, shocked, and flushing again; "i haven't! i wouldn't have!"

"that's silly, when it would be such a good thing," said tinker with a disapproving air. "however, i suppose i can work it myself. i generally have to when i want anything done."

"what are you going to do?" cried dorothy in great alarm. "oh, i do wish i hadn't said anything, or listened to you!"

"i don't know what i'm going to do. these affairs of the heart are always difficult," said tinker with the air of a sage who has observed many generations of unfortunate lovers.

"i won't have you do anything; i forbid it!" cried dorothy.

"you shouldn't order your employer about," said tinker with a smile which, on any face less angelic, would have been a grin. "besides, i'm responsible, and i must do what's good for you. and, after all, i shan't give you away, don't you know?"

"oh, do be careful!" said dorothy plaintively.

"i will," said tinker; and he rose and sauntered off along the promenade.

dorothy looked after him with mingled feelings, dread of what he might do, vexation, and a little shame that he should have so easily surprised her secret; though, indeed, she preferred that tinker should have discovered it rather than anyone else in the world. then her sure knowledge of his discretion eased her anxiety, and the consideration of his able imagination and versatile ingenuity set a new and strong hope springing up in her.

tinker strolled along to the café du printemps, and found his father sitting before it on the usual uncomfortable little chair before the usual white-topped table. he saw that his father's face wore the same expression as dorothy's had worn before he had insisted on coming to her aid. then he saw, with something of a shock, that a glass of absinthe stood on the table. things must, indeed, be in a bad way if his father drank absinthe at half-past ten in the morning.

however, he hid his disapproval, and sitting down on another uncomfortable chair, he said gently, "what does it mean when a lady is compromised, sir?"

"it means that some accident or other has given malignant fools a chance of gossipping about her," said sir tancred in an unamiable tone.

"and the man has to marry her?"

"of course he has," snapped sir tancred.

"ah!" said tinker with supreme thoughtful satisfaction.

his father looked at him for a good minute with considerable suspicion, wondering what new mischief he was hatching. but tinker looked like a guileless seraph pondering the innocent joys of the islands of the blessed, to a degree which made such a suspicion a very shameful thing indeed. partly reassured, sir tancred returned to his brooding: he was angry with himself because he felt helpless in an impasse. on the one hand, he could not bring himself to fly from dorothy; on the other, he could not bring himself to abate his pride, and ask her to marry him. she was so rich; septimus rainer had talked of settling five million dollars on her. he looked again at the pondering tinker; and his helpless irritation found the natural english vent in grumbling.

"look here," he said, half querulously, half whimsically, "i told you that if you went on adding to our household, i should be travelling about europe with a caravan. you began by adopting elsie as a sister, and i said nothing. then you added miss rainer as her governess, and i warned you. miss rainer added her father, a millionaire, and he added a maid, a valet, two secretaries, a courier, and a private detective. all these people, i know them well, will marry; and i shall be a patriarch travelling with my tribe. it must stop."

tinker sighed. "we are a large household—twelve of us, with selina," he said thoughtfully. "but you might make it more compact, sir."

"more compact—how?"

"you might marry dorothy; and then you and she could count as one."

a sudden light of exasperation brightened sir tancred's eyes, and he made a grab at tinker's arm. his hand closed on empty air; tinker was flying like the wind along the promenade.

"tinker!" roared sir tancred; but tinker went round a corner at the moment at which only the t of his name could fairly be expected to have reached him. sir tancred ground his teeth, and then he laughed.

tinker made a circuit, and came down to the sea, where he found elsie playing with two little english girls staying at arcachon with their mother. at once she deserted them for him, and when he had withdrawn her to a distance, he said, "i've hit on a way of getting them married."

"no! have you? you are clever!" she cried with the ungrudging admiration she always accorded him.

"clever? it only wants a little common-sense," said tinker with some disdain.

"i shall be glad."

"so shall i. it'll be a weight off my mind, don't you know?" said tinker with a sigh.

"i'm sure it will," said the sympathetic elsie.

"it must be awfully nice to be in love," she added with conviction.

"now, look here," said tinker in a terrible voice, "if i catch you falling in love, i'll—i'll shake you!"

"but—but, i may be in love—ever so much, for anything you know," said elsie somewhat haughtily.

"you are not," said tinker sternly. "your appetite is all right. don't talk any more nonsense, but come along, we've got to get ready for the picnic."

at half-past eleven the two children went on board the petrel, a little steam yacht of a shallow draught adapted to the shoals of the gulf, which septimus rainer had hired from a member of the bordeaux yacht club. they found dorothy and sir tancred already on board, and were told that a cablegram from new york had given her father, his secretaries, and the telegraph office of arcachon a day's work, and prevented him from coming with them. tinker had known this fact all the morning, but he did not say so. his manner to his father showed a serene unconsciousness of any cloud upon their relations.

the petrel was soon crossing the gulf in an immensely important way, at her full speed of eight knots an hour. in pursuance of his policy tinker took elsie forward, and left dorothy and his father to entertain one another on the quarter-deck. the two children amused themselves very well talking to alphonse, the steersman, and adolphe, the engineer, thick-set, thick-witted men, who combined the picturesqueness of organ-grinders with the stolidity of agriculturalists; nature had plainly intended them for the plough, and circumstance had pitched them into seafaring.

an hour's steering brought them across the gulf. they landed, and made their déjeuner at a little auberge, or rather cabaret, affected by fishermen, and the folk of the landes, off grey mullet, fresh from the bay of biscay, grilled over a fire of pine-cones, with a second course of ring-doves roasted before it.

after their coffee tinker suggested that they should cross over to the strip of sand which at that point separates the gulf from the bay, and the others fell in with his humour. they crossed over and landed in the yacht's dinghy. tinker insisted on taking two rugs, though both dorothy and his father objected that the sand was quite dry enough to sit on. however, when they came to the beach of the bay, sir tancred spread them out, and he and dorothy sat on them. the two children wandered away, and presently elsie found herself holding tinker's hand, and running hard through the pines towards the landing-place.

in answer to tinker's hail, alphonse fetched them aboard in the dingey, and the honest, unsuspecting mariners accepted his instructions to take them for a cruise, and come back later for his father and the lady, without a murmur. but no sooner was the petrel under weigh, than he strode to the middle of the quarter-deck, folded his arms, scowled darkly in the direction of his father and dorothy, so heedless of their plight, and growled in his hoarsest, most piratical voice:

"marooned! marooned!"

slowly he paced the deck, with arms still folded, casting the piercing glances of a bird of prey across the waters; then of a sudden he roared once more with the true piratical hoarseness, "all hands on deck to splice the main brace!"

alphonse and adolphe did not understand his nautical english; but when elsie came from the cabin with a bottle of cognac and two glasses, their slow, wide grins showed a perfect comprehension. tinker gave them the cognac, and took the wheel. then he became absorbed in steering, and sternly rejected all further consideration of his gift; he would have neither hand nor part in hocussing french agriculturalists posing as mariners.

but for all his absorption in his steering, and his care to look past them as they sat in more than fraternal affection on the deck, with the bottle between them, it was somehow forced on him, probably by the noise they made, that they proceeded from a gentle cheerfulness through a wild and songful hilarity, broken by interludes in which either described to the other with eloquent enthusiasm the charms of the lass who loved him best, to a tearful melancholy, from which they were rapt away into a sodden and stertorous slumber.

at the third snore tinker turned to elsie, who sat by him looking rather scared by the changing humours of the agricultural mariners, and said with a sardonic and ferocious smile, "the ship is ours."

at once they divested themselves of the hats of civilisation, and tied round their heads the red handkerchiefs proper to their profession; then he gave her the wheel, and going to the cabin, came back with a black flag neatly embroidered in white with a skull and crossbones, dorothy's work, and sternly bade an imaginary quartermaster run up the jolly roger. then, as quartermaster, he ran up that emblem of his dreadful trade himself; became captain once more, and, with folded arms and corrugated brow surveyed it gloomily. then he went down to the engine-room, put the yacht on half-speed, and, as well as he could, stoked the fires.

for the next three hours the petrel forgot all the innocent traditions of her youth as a pleasure boat, and traversed the gulf of arcachon a shameless, ravening pirate, while captain hildebrand, the scourge of the spanish main, issued curt, sanguinary orders to an imaginary but as blood-dyed a gang of villains as ever scuttled an indiaman. the jolly roger and three or four blank shots from the little signal gun drove three panic-stricken fishing boats from their fishing-ground as fast as oars and sails could carry them, to spread abroad a legend of piracy in the gulf which would last a generation.

it was nearly sunset before captain hildebrand returned to the serious consideration of his business as cupid's ally. then he set the petrel going dead slow, ran her gently on to a sandbank, and let fall the anchor, which was hanging from her bows. this done, again a pirate, he looked at the recumbent and still stertorous alphonse and adolphe with cold, cruel eyes, and said, "it's time these lubbers walked the plank."

"ay, ay, sir!" said elsie cheerfully; and then she added, in a doubtful voice, "but won't the poor men get drowned?"

"not in four feet of water," said captain hildebrand; and he set briskly about the preparations for the fell deed. with elsie's help he brought a plank to the gangway; and then, either taking him by an arm, they dragged the grunting adolphe slowly down the deck, and arranged him on the plank. with a capstan bar, and many a hearty "yo, heave ho!" they levered the plank out over the side till adolphe's weight tilted it up, and he soused into the water.

for a moment he disappeared, then he rose spluttering and choking, sank again, found his footing, and stood up, roaring like a flabbergasted bull. captain hildebrand lay quietly down on the deck, and writhed and kicked in spasms of racking mirth; but his trusty lieutenant, after laughing a while, looked grave, and said, "the poor man will take cold."

"i have no sympathy with drunkards," said captain hildebrand with cold severity; but he rose, and, going forward, by kicking alphonse hard and freely in the ribs, roused him from his dream of the lass who loved a sailor, and said, "adolphe has fallen overboard."

it took some time for the information to penetrate alphonse's skull. when it did, he was all vivid alertness, staggered swiftly aft to the gangway, and in rather less than five seconds, with no conspicuous agility, had precipitated himself into adolphe's arms. they rose, clinging to one another, and both roared like bulls, while the shrieking tinker danced lightly round the deck.

presently he recovered enough to throw them a rope, and they climbed on board: no difficult feat, seeing that the deck was not two feet above their heads. before they thought of the yacht they went to the forecastle and changed their wet clothes, while the dusk deepened. tinker went to the galley, and made tea. he had brought it to the cabin, and he and elsie were making a well-earned and hearty meal, and discoursing with gusto of their blood-dyed career during the afternoon, when alphonse, very sad and glum, came and told them that the yacht was aground, and adolphe was getting up full steam to get her off. tinker with great readiness said he would come up and help.

in half an hour he heard the rattle of the propeller, and, coming on deck, said he would go to the bows while alphonse took the wheel, and adolphe worked the engines.

he went right forward, and peered into the darkness. adolphe set the engines going full speed, reversed, and tinker cried, "she's moving!"

he saw the anchor chain slowly tauten, then the petrel moved no more. the propeller thrashed away, but to no purpose, and to his great joy he was sure that the anchor held her. however, he cheered them on to persevere, and for nearly half an hour the propeller thrashed away. then they gave it up, sat down gloomily on the hatch of the engine room, and lighted their pipes. tinker and elsie went back to the cabin, rolled themselves in rugs, and were soon enjoying the innocent sleep of childhood.

it was twelve o'clock when tinker awoke, and at once he went on deck and found that alphonse, by way of keeping watch, had gone comfortably asleep in the bows, while adolphe snored from the forecastle. he kicked alphonse awake, and said, "don't you think you could get her off if you hauled up the anchor?"

for a minute or two alphonse turned the idea hazily over in his apology for a mind; then, with a hasty exclamation, he ran to the side, and saw dimly the taut anchor chain. he blundered below, lugged adolphe out of his berth and on deck, and for five excited minutes they explained to one another that the anchor was embedded in the sandbank, and that it held the petrel on it. then soberly and slowly they got to work on the capstan, and hauled up the anchor. a dozen turns of the propeller drew the petrel off the bank and into deep water. in three minutes they had her about and steamed off towards the marooned, while tinker in the galley was heating water for coffee and making soup.

in the meanwhile dorothy and sir tancred, ignorant of their plight, had spent a delightful afternoon exploring with a never-tiring interest one another's souls. for a long time she chided him gently for his aimless manner of living; and he defended himself with a half-mocking sadness. at about sunset they rose reluctantly, sighed with one accord that the pleasant hours were over, looked at one another with sudden questioning eyes at the sound of the sighs, and looked quickly away. they walked slowly, on feet reluctant to leave pleasant places, through the pines, silent, save that twice sir tancred sent his voice ringing among the trees in a call to tinker. they came to the landing-place, to find an empty sea, and looked at one another blankly.

"the children must have persuaded the men to take them for a cruise," said sir tancred.

"but they're late coming back," said dorothy.

for a while their eyes explored the corners and recesses of the gulf within sight, but found no petrel. then sir tancred said, "well, we must wait"; and spread a rug for her at the foot of a tree. he paced up and down before her, keeping an eye over the water and talking to her.

the dusk deepened and deepened, and at last it was quite dark.

"we're in a fix," said sir tancred uneasily. "of course, if we stay here they will come for us sooner or later, but goodness knows when. if we set out to walk to civilisation we shall doubtless in time strike it somewhere, but goodness knows where."

"if we went along this strip and turned eastward at the end of it shouldn't we come to the railway?" said dorothy.

"i don't know that we should. we should get into the landes, and they're by way of being trackless. anyhow it would mean walking for hours; and it is less exhausting for you to sit here. the petrel must turn up sooner or later."

remembering her talk with tinker in the morning, dorothy believed that it would be later—much later; but as she could hardly unfold her reasons for the belief, she said nothing.

for a long time they were silent. listening to the faint thunder of the bay behind them, the lapping of the water at their feet, and the stirring of the pines, she filled slowly with a sense of their aloofness from the world, and a perfect content in being out of it alone with him. for his part, sir tancred was ill at ease; he foresaw that unless the petrel came soon a lot of annoying gossip might spring from their accident, and he was distressed on her account. on the other hand, he, too, found himself enjoying being alone with her out of the world.

at last she said softly, "i feel as though we were on a desolate, far-away island."

"i wish to goodness we were!" he cried, with a fervour which thrilled her.

"you'd find it very dull," she said, with a faint, uncertain laugh.

"not with you," he said quietly.

she was silent; and he took another turn up and down before he said, half to himself, "it would simplify things so, we should be equal."

"equal?"

"oh, not from the personal point of view!" he said quickly. "you'd always be worth a hundred of me. but on a desolate island money wouldn't count."

"oh, money!" she said with a faint disdain. "what has money to do with anything?"

he sighed, and continued his pacing.

"money is always an obstacle," he said presently. "either there is too little of it, and that's an obstacle; or there is too much of it, and that's an obstacle."

"i don't think papa would agree with you about too much money," said dorothy.

"i'm wondering what he will say if we don't turn up before morning," said sir tancred gloomily.

"i suppose he'll say that it was an unfortunate accident."

"yes; but then, i ought to have protected you against unfortunate accidents. i'm afraid there'll be a lot of gossip."

"well, it wasn't your fault," said dorothy carelessly.

sir tancred grew more and more unhappy. his watch told him that it was nearly ten o'clock, and there was no sign of the petrel. moreover, the sense of their aloofness from the world had taken a firmer hold on him, and it drew him and dorothy nearer and nearer together. the feeling that the world, of which her money had grown the symbol, would again come between them, grew more and more intolerable.

at last it grew too strong for him, and he stopped before her and said, in a voice he could not keep firm, "about that wasted life of mine, dorothy. do you think you could do anything with it?"

dorothy gasped. "i might—i might try," she said in a whisper.

he stooped down, picked her up, and kissed her. then, with a profound sigh of relief and content, he sat down beside her, drew her to him, and leaned back against the tree; she was crying softly.

they were far away from the world, and for them time stood still. they did not see the approaching lights of the petrel, or hear the throb of her screw; only the roaring hail of alphonse awoke them from their dream.

when they came on board, the observant tinker saw the flush which came and went in dorothy's cheeks, and the new light in his father's eyes; he saw her genuine surprise at finding herself so hungry. he observed that his father was quite careless about the cause of the petrel's long absence, and his angel face was wreathed with the contented smile of the truly meritorious.

after supper his father went on deck to watch the steering of the yacht; elsie fell asleep; and dorothy sat, lost in a dream.

"is it all right?" said tinker softly.

"i don't know what you mean. you're a horrid scheming little boy," said dorothy with shameless ingratitude.

"yes; but is it all right?" said tinker.

"i shan't let you scheme like that when—when i'm your mother," said dorothy with virtuous severity, and she blushed.

"so it is all right," said tinker, and he chuckled.

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