d she constrained herself to
gaze down upon him coldly. But when the _Belle Julie's_ bow touched the
bank, and the waiting crew melted suddenly into a tenuous line of
burden-bearers, she fled through the deserted saloon to her state-room
and hid the fatal letter under the pillows in her berth.

Another hour had elapsed. It was nearly noon, and the stewards had
bridged the spaces in the row of square saloon-tables and were laying
the cloth for the mid-day meal. Charlotte opened her door guardedly, as
one fearing to face prying eyes, and finding the coast clear, slipped
out to rejoin her aunt under the awning abaft the paddle-box. Miss
Gilman shut her finger into the magazine to keep her place and looked up
in mild surprise.

"Where have you been?" she asked. "Has it taken you all this time to
write to the bank people?"

Charlotte's answer satisfied the strict letter of the inquiry, though it
slew the spirit.

"I wrote the letter quite awhile ago. I have been lying down, since."

The invalid reopened the magazine, and Charlotte was left to make peace
as best she might with her conscience for having told the half-truth. It
was characteristic of the inward monitor that even in such a trivial
matter it refused to be coerced. Accordingly, a little while afterward,
when Charlotte took her aunt's arm to lead her to the table, she said:

"I told you I had written to Mr. Galbraith, and so I have. But the
letter is not yet mailed." And, since the natural inference was that
there had been no opportunity to mail it, the conscientious little
confession went as wide of the mark as if it had never been made.

At the captain's end of the long table the talk rippled pointlessly
around the New Orleans bank robbery, and Miss Farnham took no part in it
until Captain Mayfield spoke of the reward of ten thousand dollars which
had been offered for the apprehension of the robber. The fact touched
her upon the ethical side, and she said:

"That is something that always seems so dreadfully barbarous; to set a
money price on the head of a human being."

The captain laughed.

"'Tis sort o' Middle-Aged, when you come to think of it. But it does the
police business oftener than anything else, I guess. A detective will
work mighty hard nowadays for ten thousand dollars."

"Yes, I suppose so; but it is barbarous," Charlotte persisted. "It is an
open appeal to the lowest motive in human nature--cupidity."

The bluff riverman nodded a quali