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"But she hasn't come to see me," the girl in the hammock thought. "She has come to see Knight. It's for him she is waiting." Anger stirred in Annesley's heart, anger against Knight as well as against Madalena. "Has he written and told her to come?" she asked herself. "Does she think she can stay in this house? No, she shall not! I won't have her here!"
The matter was settled, and Connie telephoned to Madalena. "No Archdeacon; no Mrs. Archdeacon! But I've bagged the jewel-man. Will he be strong enough alone to spread over us that mantle of mysterious protection your crystal showed you?" "I hope so," the Countess answered. Yet the woman at the other end of the wire thought the voice sounded dull, and was disappointed, even vaguely anxious.
As far as they had ascertained, except Gourbi Island, the sole surviving fragments of the Old World were four small islands: the bit of Gibraltar occupied by the Englishmen; Ceuta, which had just been left by the Spaniards; Madalena, where they had picked up the little Italian girl; and the site of the tomb of Saint Louis on the coast of Tunis.
The desired promise hurriedly made, the Countess gave her attention once more to the crystal. For a time she could see nothing. The mysterious current had been severed by the diversion, and had slowly to be rewoven by the seeress's will. "I can see only dimly," Madalena said. "It was clear before! I cannot tell you why the things you care for were left.... Something new is coming.
"Rather theatrical, don't you think?" said the Duchess of Peebles. "It's more satisfactory to go to a woman you can pay with money and not invitations." So Madalena was not mourned for long; and the Annesley-Setons were fortunate enough to replace their lost American millionaire with one from Australia. He was old, and his wife was fat; but you can't have everything.
Other rendezvous there were, of course, each with its own number, and with a cruiser if at sea; but in the anchorages occasionally resorted to, as Madalena, or the Gulf of Palmas in the south of Sardinia, communications were left on shore.
A few seconds later the small open car came into sight, and Madalena sprang up, waving a dark veil she had snatched off her hat. She feared, no doubt, that the man might take another direction and perhaps get into the house by some door she did not know before she could intercept him.
"You mean," she said, "that if you should be at Valley House when the thing happens, and we are puzzled and upset about it, you might be able to help?" "The fancy passed through my head. It was the picture in the crystal suggested it," Madalena explained. "Do have an éclair!"
In this dilemma his attention was called to the Madalena Islands, a group off the northeast end of Sardinia, where wood and water could be obtained. Between them and the main island there was a good harbor, having the decisive advantage of two entrances, by one or other of which it could be left in winds from any quarter.
The fleet could make no way against it, but neither could the French utilize it, unless, which was unlikely, they had got much farther to the southward than Nelson had. When he left Madalena, he had sent a frigate ahead, with orders to round Sardinia by the south and try to get sight or word of the enemy.
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