"Don't get excited, Mother. We will wait until breakfast time. If she doesn't turn up then, you may be sure I shall find her."
He looked at his watch. It was already nearly eight o'clock, so he decided to say nothing to Pembroke until after breakfast. He found the Marquis and Tom chatting before the fire in the bar.
"Shall we have breakfast?" said Dan. "Mother will not be in this morning."
"Ah!" exclaimed the Marquis, as they took their seats at table, "that is a disappointment. And shall we not wait for Mademoiselle Nancy?"
"My sister has stepped out, monsieur; she may be late. Shall I give you some coffee?"
"If you please—. We have another of these so beautiful days, eh? This so glorious weather, these moonlight nights, this snow—C'est merveilleux. Last night I sat myself for a long time in my window. Ah la nuit—the moon past its full, say you not?—the sea superbly dark, superbly blue, the wonderful white country! As I sat there, messieurs, a sight too beautiful greeted my eyes. A ship, with three great sails, appeared out on the sea and sailed as a bird up the river to our little cove, Voila, mes amis"—he waved his hand toward the eastern windows—"She is anchored at our feet."
The two young men looked in the direction in which the marquis pointed, and to their astonishment they saw, riding securely at her moorings in the cove, a large sailing vessel. She was a three-masted schooner of perhaps fifteen hundred tons, a larger ship than they had seen at anchor in the Strathsey for many a year.
"By all that's good!" exclaimed Tom, "that is exactly the sort of ship my father used to have in the West Indie trade, a dozen or fifteen years ago. What is she? I wonder; and why is she anchored here instead of in the Port?"
The Marquis shrugged his shoulders. "That I can tell you not, my friend; but I am happy that she is anchored there for the hours of beauty she has already given to me. On this strange coast of yours one so rarely sees a sail."
"No, they go too far to the south... But what is she?" asked Dan. "We must find out." He went to the cupboard, and got out his marine glass and took a long look at the stranger.