. She did not heed him.

"Let me go!" she cried. "Let me get away from him; from this room! I
never want to see him or think of him again. Please! _Please_ let me go!
Oh, take me home! Captain Warren, _please_ let me go home!"

Her uncle was at her side in a moment. "Yes, yes, dearie," he said,
"I'll take you home. Don't give way now! I'll--"

He would have taken her arm, but she shrank from him.

"Not you!" she begged. "Steve!"

The captain's face clouded, but he answered promptly.

"Of course--Steve," he agreed. "Steve, take your sister home. Mr.
Sylvester's got a carriage waitin', and he'll go with you, I don't
doubt. Do as I tell you, boy--and behave yourself. Don't wait; go!"

He held the door open until the hysterical girl and her brother had
departed. Then he turned to the Dunns.

"Well, ma'am," he said, dryly. "I don't know's there's anything more to
be said. All the questions seem to be settled. Our acquaintance wa'n't
so awful long, but it was interestin'. Knowin' you has been, as the
feller said, a liberal education. Don't let me keep you any longer. Good
afternoon."

He stepped away from the door. Malcolm and his mother remained standing,
for an instant, where they were when Caroline left.

The young man looked as if he would enjoy choking someone, the captain
preferably, but said nothing. Then Mrs. Dunn bethought herself of a way
to make their exit less awkward and embarrassing.

"My heart!" she said, gasping, and with a clutch at her breast. "My
poor heart! I--I fear I'm going to have one of my attacks. Malcolm, your
arm--quick!"

With an expression of intense but patient suffering, and leaning heavily
upon her son's arm, she moved past Captain Elisha and from the room.

* * * * *

That evening the captain stood in the lower hall of the apartment house
at Central Park West, undecided what to do next. He wished more than
anything else in the world to go to his niece. He would have gone to her
before--had been dying to go, to soothe, to comfort, to tell her of his
love--but he was afraid. His conscience troubled him. Perhaps he had
been too brutal. Perhaps he shouldn't have acted as he did. Maybe
forcing the Dunn fleet to show its colors could have been done more
diplomatically. He had wanted her to see those colors for herself, to
actually see them. But he might have overdone it. He remembered how she
shrank from him and turned to her brother. She might hate hi