was
a chance, a not impossible one, but ugly enough. At any rate, it was
the only one, if he were to get out and leave that "honorable word"
untarnished. It never occurred to him that she might take it less
seriously than he.

Waters, who dreamed, who stood by and gazed when life became
turbulent and vivid, did not hesitate now. There was time for nothing
but action, if he was to substitute a worthy sacrifice for his
spoiled gift.

Seated upon the sill, he managed to draw the inner window shut and to
latch it through the ventilating pane; the outer one he had to leave
swinging and trust that she might find or not demand an explanation
for it. This done, he was left, with his back to the house, seated
upon the sill, a ledge perhaps a foot wide, with his legs swinging
above the twenty-foot drop. In order to make it with a chance for
safety, he had so to change his posture that he could hang by his
hands from the sill, thus reducing the sheer fall by some six feet.

The dull windows of the courtyard watched him like stagnant eyes as,
leaning aside, he labored to turn and lower himself. His experience
at sea and upon the gantries in the yards should have helped him; but
the past days, with their chill and insufficient food, had done their
work on nerve and muscle, and he was still straining to turn and get
his weight on to his hands when he slipped.

In the outer room, the catechism was running, or crawling, its ritual
course.

"Father's nationality?" the policeman was inquiring, with his
notebook upheld to the light and! a stub of flat pencil poised for
the answer. A noise from the courtyard reached him. "What's that?" he
inquired.

"Sounds like wood slipping off the stack," volunteered a citizen, and
the dvornik, whose business it had been to pile it, and who had
trouble enough on his hands already, sighed and drooped.

"American, of course," replied Miss Pilgrim patiently.

Below in the courtyard, Waters sat up and raised a hand to where
something wet and warm was running down his cheek from under his
hair, and found that it hurt his wrist when he did so. He rose
stiffly, cursing to himself at the pain it caused him. Above him, the
windows of the room that was always to be ready and waiting were
broad and bright and heads were visible against them. He felt himself
carefully and discovered that he could walk.

"Huh! Me for the roads goin' south outta this," he soliloquized, as
he hobbled towards the gate; "an