steamer."

"The object of my journey," Virginia said, looking out seaward,
"concerns nobody but myself."

The young man nodded.

"I expected that you would say that," he remarked coolly. "Still, our
meeting like this induced me to ask you the question. If I can be of any
service to you in London, I hope you will not fail to let me know. Your
uncle would never forgive me if I did not do everything I could in the
way of looking after you."

Virginia smiled a little bitterly.

"My uncle," she said, "is not likely to trouble his head about me. He
has dispensed with my services for the future. When I go home, I am
going back to my own people."

Littleson was genuinely sorry. To a certain extent he felt that this was
his fault.

"That's just like Phineas," he said. "Hard as nails, and without a
dime's worth of consideration. I don't see how you could help what
happened. You gave nothing up voluntarily. You told nobody anything."

"My uncle," Virginia said, "judges only by results. After all, it is the
only infallible way. I am going to read a little now. Do you mind?
Talking makes my head ache."

He bowed and went his way. For an hour or more he paced up and down on
the other side of the deck, thinking. It was, of course, impossible that
this child should have come across with the hope of wresting from Norris
Vine the paper which all their offers and eloquence had failed to entice
him to give up. And yet he did not understand her journey. He knew very
well that Phineas Duge had neither connections nor relatives in England.
Only a few weeks ago, in talking to Virginia at dinner-time, she had
told him that she had no hope, at present at any rate, of visiting
Europe. Later in the day he sent a marconigram back to New York. Perhaps
Weiss would see something suggestive in the presence of this child upon
the steamer!

* * * * *

"So you have found one friend on board," Mildmay remarked, pausing
before her chair.

"He is not a friend," she answered, "and I do not like him. That is why
I told him that it made my head ache to talk."

"Then I suppose--" he began.

"You are to suppose nothing, but to sit down," she said. "Talk to me
about London, please, or anything, or any place. I am a little tired
to-day. I suppose I should say really a little depressed. I cannot read,
and I don't like my thoughts."

"You are such a child," he said softly, "to talk like that."

"I am nineteen," she