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330 That sense of the proportion of things, which we call humour, grows acute after one has wandered up and down the world, as that tiny bubble spins round its sun through unfathomed space. And if one has lost at almost every turn, and has a nature both sound and sweet, shadows become high-lights in an amusing picture, ever shifting and changing and—well, he can smile then at many things.

He was addressing her in that voice which was so full of haunting music, and courtesy, and gentleness, especially with her.

"Do not be afraid, Mademoiselle. The treasure is a fact now—the superstition which the good Richard repeats, nothing but a—superstition."

"But I'm afraid of superstitions. They seem so real here."

"Besides," the Frenchman answered, "there is a romantic codicil to the will, which the old pirates left, so ironically, in that chart on the stone in the cavern, and on the old yellow chart, and the one on the back of the ghost picture."

"I see it all now," the girl exclaimed. "The canvas which that man had, that tall man who always makes me shiver—he's staring at us now, there, over on the beach—was taken from the frame that hangs in the house in the mountain."

"You saw it, then," he replied. "Yes, it was stolen, years ago, by a wandering painter who came here and sought the gold, but could not find it. Later, he wandered back to your own land, Mademoiselle, trying to fit out an expedition to search for the treasure. But he never came back, so the tale runs," he added grimly. "The curse must have followed him—even up there."