Believe me,
Elsie, I was half mad when I helped him to steal the boat."
"Steal the boat! What boat?"
"Has not Captain Courtenay told you?"
"Not a word."
"Ah, he is a true gentleman. But you forget. You heard what he said
to de Poincilit before he went to the Guanaco canon?"
"Yes; I did not understand. Oh, my poor Isobel, how you must have
suffered, while I have been so happy."
"If only I could recover my papers--"
"May I ask Arthur to help?"
"He knows the worst of me already. One more shameful disclosure cannot
add to my degradation."
"Isobel, how little you know him!" Thus spoke Elsie, after fourteen
days. Truly there is much enlightenment in a hug!
Monsieur le Comte Edouard de Poincilit, to his intense chagrin, found
that a ship's captain has far-reaching powers when he chooses to exert
them. Rather than enter a Montevidean jail, where people have died
suddenly of nasty fevers, he not only restored the missing documents
but submitted to a close scrutiny of his own belongings, which resulted
in the pleasing discovery that he was not a French count, but a denizen
of Martinique--most probably a defaulting valet or clerk.
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