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Updated: June 13, 2025
It was conceivable now to Kate that Virginia and Madeleine Dalahaide had had confidences together, and that the mysterious locked stateroom had been specially fitted up for the benefit of the prodigal.
Neither money, nor influence, nor yearning sister-love, nor the love of friends who would give their heart's blood to save him, could shield Maxime Dalahaide from the sword of Damocles, ever suspended, ever ready to fall. When the Marchese Loria received Lady Gardiner's telegram from Sydney, he was stunned. "Leaving here to-morrow," the message ran; "destination unknown."
"Miss Dalahaide will come on board at Naples," Kate said to herself when it became certain that they would stop there. "She is well known in Mentone, no doubt, and didn't wish it to leak out that she was going on this yachting trip." But they arrived at Naples, sent off telegrams and letters, coaled, and left without taking on another passenger.
Max Dalahaide was accused of murder, tried, and condemned." "What he is dead, then? I thought you said I " Virginia's heart gave so sudden and violent a bound that she stammered, and grew red and white under the revealing moonlight. She was thinking of the portrait seeing it again, looking into the eyes which had seemed to speak. Dead! Executed as a murderer!
It might be considered better to let one convict go free, than precipitate an international complication, a world-wide sensation, especially as there was no one with a personal interest to serve in recovering this particular prisoner. They steamed boldly on toward Samoa. The morning that the island was sighted, Dr. Grayle had pronounced Max Dalahaide better. The delirium had passed.
You were guilty of the 'Judas act. Maxime Dalahaide loved you; and with what motive I don't yet know, but mean to know, you betrayed him to a fate worse than death. For that you deserve anything. Yes, I kidnapped you. That's what Roger called it, and I don't repent now. You are here on this yacht with Maxime Dalahaide, and we are on the open sea.
Kate Gardiner had a clue to the mystery which the Countess de Mattos did not possess. The Portuguese beauty had no means of guessing what had brought the Bella Cuba to Noumea. She had never heard any one on board speak the name of Dalahaide, or that of any convict imprisoned at New Caledonia, and the firing between the yacht and the French boat suggested nothing to her but horror.
But Virginia is certainly thinking of Maxime Dalahaide. To-day, she was reading a French book about Noumea. She hid it when I came into the room; but later I came across it by accident. Yes, she is thinking of him, but it is only a girl's foolish, romantic fancy, of course a spoilt child, crying for the moon, because it's the one thing that no adoring person can get for her.
"We thought that the subject was disagreeable to you," said Kate. "We saw and spoke with Miss Dalahaide, a pale, cold girl, dressed in black, with a voice that somehow sounded dead. She did not mention her brother, and seemed so reserved that I should think it would be difficult to break the ice with her.
The three had planned among themselves, when this day was still in the future, that if they should succeed in their first step, and gain access to Maxime Dalahaide, Roger must keep in the background until his mind had been prepared by Virginia and George Trent for what was to come. The other two, as strangers to him, could approach the prisoner without risk.
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