r head.

"Don't you think it would be better"--he spoke quickly--"for you to
return to your cabin? I'll let you know when I want you and--"

"But if I prefer to stay here? May I not turn on the lights?"

"Not for worlds!" Hastily. "It is necessary they should not see me. If
they did--"

He was obliged to explain a little of the real situation to her; of the
stratagem he had employed. This he did in few words. She listened
eagerly. The mantle of the commonplace, which to her eyes had fallen a
few moments before on his shoulders, became at least partly withdrawn.
She divined the great hazard, the danger he had faced--was facing now.
Detective or not, it had been daringly done. Her voice, with a warm
thrill in it, said as much. Her eyes shone like stars. She came of a
live virile stock, from men and women who had done things themselves.

"If only I, too, had a weapon!" she said, leaning toward him. "In case
they should discover--"

"No, no. It wouldn't do at all."

"Why not?" the warm lips breathed. "I can shoot. Some one once taught
me--"

She stopped short. A chill seemed descending. "You were saying--" he
prompted eagerly.

But she did not answer. The sweep of her hair made a shadowy veil around
her; his mind harked swiftly back. She had always had wondrous hair. It
had taken two big braids to hold it; most girls could get their hair in
one braid. He had been very proud, for her, of those two
braids--once--with their blue or pink ribbons that had popped below the
edge of her skirts. He continued to see blue and pink ribbons now.

Both were for some time silent. At length she stirred--seated herself.
Mr. Heatherbloom mechanically did likewise, but at a distance from her.
He tried not to see her, to become mentally oblivious of her presence,
to concentrate again solely on the matter in hand. A long, long interval
passed. Chug! chug! the engines continued to grind. How far away they
sounded. Another sound, too, at length broke the stillness--a stealthy
footfall on the deck. It sent him at once softly to the window; he gazed
out. She followed.

"Are--are we getting anywhere near port?"

He did not tell her that it was not port he was looking for so soon as
he gazed out searchingly into the night.

"What is it?" She had drawn the curtain a little. Her shoulder touched
him.

Suddenly his arm swept her back. "What do you mean"--he turned on her
sternly--"by drawing that curtain?"

"Was any one there?"

"A