ed bitterness of her spirit. "I tried to see you
quietly, last night, but you had gone to your cabin. I have a feeling
that we're under the eye of every steward on this ship--I _know_ we are
being watched, all the time. And if you were seen here with me, it
would only drag you in, and make it harder to straighten out, in the
end. Can't you see what's going on?"

"Yes, I _have_ been seeing what's going on--and I'm sick of it!"

"Oh, not _that_, Jim!" she cried, in a little muffled wail. "You know
it would never be that!"

His one dominating feeling was that which grew out of the stinging
consciousness that she wanted to escape him, that the moment had come
when she could make an effort to evade him. But he was only paying the
penalty! He had sowed, he told himself, and it was only natural that
in time he should reap! Already he was losing her! Already, it might
be, he had lost her!

"Won't you be reasonable?" she was saying, and her voice sounded faint
and far away. "I've got to see this through now, and one little false
move would spoil everything! I must land by myself. I'll write you,
at the Bartholdi, when and where to meet me!"

The noise of approaching footsteps sounded down the carpeted
passageway. He had caught her by the arm, but now he released his grip
and turned away.

"Quick," she whispered, "here's somebody coming!"

She was struggling with the ends of her veil, and Durkin was aimlessly
pacing away from her, when the hurrying steward brushed by them. A
moment later he returned, followed by a second steward, but by this
time Durkin had made his way to the upper deck, and was looking with
quiescent rage at the quays and walls and skyscrapers of New York.

Before the steamer wore into the wharf Frank had seen Keenan and a last
few words had passed between them. She sternly schooled herself to
calmness, for she felt her great moment had come.

At his request that her first mission be to deliver a sealed packet at
the office of Richard Penfield, in the lower West Side, she evinced
neither surprise nor displeasure. It was all in the day's work, she
protested, as Keenan talked on, giving her more definite instructions
and still again impressing on her the need for secrecy.

She took the sealed package without emotion--the little package for
which she had worked so hard and lost so much and waited so long--and
as apathetically secreted it. Equally without emotion she passed
Durkin, stan