"Yes. There's the negro above stairs for one thing, Cullen's servant. For another I met Cullen Mayle on the road as I was travelling here. He counterfeited an ague, which he told me he had caught on the Guinea coast. The ague was counterfeit, but very likely he has been on the Guinea coast."
"Of course," cried Dick.
"Not a doubt of it," said Helen.
"So this is my theory. George Glen came to enlist Adam Mayle's help and Adam Mayle's money, in some voyage to Africa. Cullen Mayle overheard it, and got the start of George Glen. So here's George Glen back again upon Tresco, and watching for Cullen Mayle."
"See!" cried Helen suddenly. "Did I not tell you you were sent here to a good end?"
"But we are not out of the wood yet," I protested. "We have to discover what it was that Glen proposed to Mr. Mayle. How shall we do that?"
"How?" repeated Helen, and she looked to me confidently for the answer.
"I can think of but one way," said I, "to go boldly to George Glen and make terms with him."
"Would he speak, do you think?"
"Most likely not," I answered, and so in spite of my fine conjecture, we did not seem to have come any nearer to an issue. We were both of us silent for some while. The very confidence which Helen displayed stung me into an activity of thought. Helen herself was sunk in an abstraction, and in that abstraction she spoke.