Renee pointed to the dots and severed lines and isolated columns of the rising city, black over bright sea.

‘Mine there as well as here,’ said Beauchamp, and looked at her with the fiery zeal of eyes intent on minutest signs for a confirmation, to shake that sad negation of her face.

‘Renee, you cannot break the pledge of the hand you gave me last night.’

‘You tell me how weak a creature I am.’

’You are me, myself; more, better than me.  And say, would you not rather coast here and keep the city under water?’

She could not refrain from confessing that she would be glad never to land there.

‘So, when you land, go straight to your father,’ said Beauchamp, to whose conception it was a simple act resulting from the avowal.

‘Oh! you torture me,’ she cried.  Her eyelashes were heavy with tears.  ’I cannot do it.  Think what you will of me!  And, my friend, help me.  Should you not help me?  I have not once actually disobeyed my father, and he has indulged me, but he has been sure of me as a dutiful girl.  That is my source of self-respect.  My friend can always be my friend.’

‘Yes, while it’s not too late,’ said Beauchamp.

She observed a sudden stringing of his features.  He called to the chief boatman, made his command intelligible to that portly capitano, and went on to Roland, who was puffing his after-breakfast cigarette in conversation with the tolerant English lady.

‘You condescend to notice us, Signor Beauchamp,’ said Roland.  ’The vessel is up to some manoeuvre?’

‘We have decided not to land,’ replied Beauchamp.  ‘And Roland,’ he checked the Frenchman’s shout of laughter, ’I think of making for Trieste.  Let me speak to you, to both.  Renee is in misery.  She must not go back.’

Roland sprang to his feet, stared, and walked over to Renee.

‘Nevil,’ said Rosamund Culling, ‘do you know what you are doing?’

‘Perfectly,’ said he.  ’Come to her.  She is a girl, and I must think and act for her.’

Roland met them.

‘My dear Nevil, are you in a state of delusion?  Renee denies . . .’

’There’s no delusion, Roland.  I am determined to stop a catastrophe.  I see it as plainly as those Alps.  There is only one way, and that’s the one I have chosen.’

‘Chosen! my friend’.  But allow me to remind you that you have others to consult.  And Renee herself . . .’

‘She is a girl.  She loves me, and I speak for her.’

‘She has said it?’

‘She has more than said it.’

’You strike me to the deck, Nevil.  Either you are downright mad—­which seems the likeliest, or we are all in a nightmare.  Can you suppose I will let my sister be carried away the deuce knows where, while her father is expecting her, and to fulfil an engagement affecting his pledged word?’

Beauchamp simply replied: