Olive thoroughly believed that Larssen's sole object in placing the yacht at her disposal was to reconcile husband and wife, and so indirectly to smooth over the quarrel between himself and Clifford. She had no suspicion that his real objective was to get Matheson on the high seas, the only region where he could not hear of the coming flotation of the Hudson Bay Transport, Ltd. Larssen had told her that she was free to order the yacht's movements as she pleased—he merely suggested in a perfectly casual way that a cruise to the Norwegian fjords might prove enjoyable.

"It was good of you to come!" said Olive as her husband mounted the gangway to the white-railed deck. There was unmistakable sincerity in her greeting.

"I'm to be captain of the 'Starlight' as soon as I get my skipper's ticket," confided the little boy as he shook hands.

Matheson had made up his mind to carry out Elaine's wish. He had come back to his wife; and he was prepared to fall in with any plan that she might propose. Accordingly, when she suggested the alternatives of a cruise down the Channel and up to the Hebrides, or a cruise to Norway, he left the decision to her. She chose Norway. Matheson, with the shipowner's agreement in his pocket to extend their truce to May 20th, raised no objection. There was ample time to be back in England before that date.

Olive gave her orders to the captain. Before weighing anchor, the latter sent on shore for further provisions. At the same time he dispatched a telegram to Larssen stating that they were bound for Norway that evening.

A smooth deft dinner was served to Matheson and his wife in the comfortable saloon as the yacht weighed anchor, slung round to a light wind from the south-east, and made gently towards the outer edge of the Goodwins. Through the starboard portholes Wimereux Plage twinkled gaily to them from its string of lights on esplanade and summer villas; Cap Grisnez flashed its calm white light of guardianship; Calais town sent a message of kindly greeting from the far distance; only the Varne Sands whispered a wordless warning as they swirled the waters above them and sent a flock of shivering wavelets to beat against the smooth hull of the "Starlight."

On that night of April 30th, while Clifford Matheson slept on board the yacht, the presses of Fleet Street thundered off millions of newspapers which bore on their financial page the impressive prospectus of Hudson Bay Transport, Ltd. The post bore off to every town and village in the United Kingdom hundreds of thousands of copies of the issue in its full legal detail.

Heading the prospectus were these names on the Board of Directors:—