at
was still so close that she could look deeply into his eyes. Through
all her tumult of horror, there struck cold to Sylvia's heart the
knowledge that they were the eyes of a stranger. The blow that had
pierced her had struck into a quivering center of life, so deep within
her, that only something as deep as its terrible suffering could seem
real. The man who stood there, so impotently calling to her, belonged
to another order of things--things which a moment ago had been
important to her, and which now no longer existed. He had become for
her as remote, as immaterial as the gaudy picturesqueness of the
scene in which he stood. She gave him a long strange look, and made a
strange gesture, a gesture of irrevocable leave-taking. She turned her
face again to the sea, and did not look back.

They approached the liner, and Sylvia saw some dark heads looking over
the railing at her. Her boatman rowed around the stern to the other
side, where the slanting stairs used in boarding the harbor-boats
still hung over the side. The landing was far above their heads.
Sylvia stood up and cried loudly to the dull faces, staring down at
her from the steerage deck. "Send somebody down on the stairs to speak
to me." There was a stir; a man in a blue uniform came and looked over
the edge, and went away. After a moment, an officer in white ran down
the stairs to the hanging landing with the swift, sure footing of a
seaman. Sylvia stood up again, turning her white face up to him, her
eyes blazing in the shadow of her hat. "I've just heard that my mother
is very sick, and I must get back to America at once. If you will let
down the rope ladder, I can climb up. I must go! I have plenty of
money. I _must_!"

The officer stared, shook his head, and ran back up the stairs,
disappearing into the black hole in the ship's side. The dark, heavy
faces continued to hang over the railing, staring fixedly down at the
boat with a steady, incurious gaze. Sylvia's boatman balanced his
oar-handles on his knees, rolled a cigarette and lighted it. The boat
swayed up and down on the shimmering, heaving roll of the water,
although the ponderous ship beside it loomed motionless as a rock.
The sun beat down on Sylvia's head and up in her face from the molten
water till she felt sick, but when another officer in white, an
elderly man with an impassive, bearded face, came down the stairs, she
rose up, instantly forgetful of everything but her demand. She called