your position. It
is all very irregular, as you say. But I am not ashamed. I have come to
you as I would want anyone to come to me under similar circumstances, if
I were a man. If watching you, thinking about you, making up my mind
about you is taking an advantage--then I have been unfair, Mr. Holt. But
I am not sorry. I trust you. I know you will believe me good until I am
proved bad. I have come to ask you to help me. Would you make it
possible for another human being to avert a great tragedy if you found
it in your power to do so?"

He felt his sense of judgment wavering. Had he been coolly analyzing
such a situation in the detached environment of the smoking-room, he
would have called any man a fool who hesitated to open his cabin door
and show his visitor out. But such a thought did not occur to him now.
He was thinking of the handkerchief he had found the preceding midnight.
Twice she had come to his cabin at a late hour.

"It would be my inclination to make such a thing possible," he said,
answering her question. "Tragedy is a nasty thing."

She caught the hint of irony in his voice. If anything, it added to her
calmness. He was to suffer no weeping entreaties, no feminine play of
helplessness and beauty. Her pretty mouth was a little firmer and the
tilt of her dainty chin a bit higher.

"Of course, I can't pay you," she said. "You are the sort of man who
would resent an offer of payment for what I am about to ask you to do.
But I must have help. If I don't have it, and quickly"--she shuddered
slightly and tried to smile--"something very unpleasant will happen, Mr.
Holt," she finished.

"If you will permit me to take you to Captain Rifle--"

"No. Captain Rifle would question me. He would demand explanations. You
will understand when I tell you what I want. And I will do that if I may
have your word of honor to hold in confidence what I tell you, whether
you help me or not. Will you give me that pledge?"

"Yes, if such a pledge will relieve your mind, Miss Standish."

He was almost brutally incurious. As he reached for a cigar, he did not
see the sudden movement she made, as if about to fly from his room, or
the quicker throb that came in her throat. When he turned, a faint flush
was gathering in her cheeks.

"I want to leave the ship," she said.

The simplicity of her desire held him silent.

"And I must leave it tonight, or tomorrow night--before we reach
Cordova."

"Is that--your problem?" he dem