anded, astonished.

"No. I must leave it in such a way that the world will believe I am
dead. I can not reach Cordova alive."

At last she struck home and he stared at her, wondering if she were
insane. Her quiet, beautiful eyes met his own with unflinching
steadiness. His brain all at once was crowded with questioning, but no
word of it came to his lips.

"You can help me," he heard her saying in the same quiet, calm voice,
softened so that one could not have heard it beyond the cabin door. "I
haven't a plan. But I know you can arrange one--if you will. It must
appear to be an accident. I must disappear, fall overboard, anything,
just so the world will believe I am dead. It is necessary. And I can not
tell you why. I can not. Oh, I _can not_."

A note of passion crept into her voice, but it was gone in an instant,
leaving it cold and steady again. A second time she tried to smile. He
could see courage, and a bit of defiance, shining in her eyes.

"I know what you are thinking, Mr. Holt. You are asking yourself if I am
mad, if I am a criminal, what my reason can be, and why I haven't gone
to Rossland, or Captain Rifle, or some one else. And the only answer I
can make is that I have come to you because you are the only man in the
world--in this hour--that I have faith in. Some day you will understand,
if you help me. If you do not care to help me--"

She stopped, and he made a gesture.

"Yes, if I don't? What will happen then?"

"I shall be forced to the inevitable," she said. "It is rather unusual,
isn't it, to be asking for one's life? But that is what I mean."

"I'm afraid--I don't quite understand."

"Isn't it clear, Mr. Holt? I don't like to appear spectacular, and I
don't want you to think of me as theatrical--even now. I hate that sort
of thing. You must simply believe me when I tell you it is impossible
for me to reach Cordova alive. If you do not help me to disappear, help
me to live--and at the same time give all others the impression that I
am dead--then I must do the other thing. I must really die."

For a moment his eyes blazed angrily. He felt like taking her by the
shoulders and shaking her, as he would have shaken the truth out of
a child.

"You come to me with a silly threat like that, Miss Standish? A threat
of suicide?"

"If you want to call it that--yes."

"And you expect me to believe you?"

"I had hoped you would."

She had his nerves going. There was no doubt of that. He half be