iting. Since then, I have
paid back nearly all the rest. But Polly was not satisfied. She
wanted me to take my punishment and start fresh. She knew they were
watching her so she couldn't write this to me, but she came to me by a
roundabout way, taking a year to get here. And all the time she's been
here, she's been begging me to go back and give myself up. I couldn't
see it. I knew in a few months I'd have paid back all I took, and I
thought that was enough. I wanted to keep out of jail. But she said I
must take my medicine in our own country, and start square with a clean
slate. She's done a lot for me, and whether I'd have done that for her
or not, I don't know. But now, I must! What you did to-night to save
me, leaves me no choice. So, I'll sail--"

With an exclamation of anger, Hemingway caught the other by the
shoulder and dragged him closer.

"To save you!" he whispered. "No one's thinking of you. I didn't do
it for you. I did it, that you both could escape together, to give you
time--"

"But I tell you," protested Fearing, "she doesn't want me to escape.
And maybe she's right. Anyway, we're sailing with you at--"

"We?" echoed Hemingway.

That again he was to see the woman he loved, that for six weeks through
summer seas he would travel in her company, filled him with alarm, with
distress, with a wonderful happiness.

"We?" he whispered, steadying his voice. "Then--then your wife is
going with you?"

Fearing gazed at him as though the other had suddenly gone mad.

"My wife!" he exclaimed. "I haven't got a wife! If you mean
Polly--Mrs. Adair, she is my sister! And she wants to thank you. She's
below--"

He was not allowed to finish. Hemingway had flung him to one side, and
was racing down the deck.

The detective sprang in pursuit.

"One moment, there!" he shouted.

But the man in the white mess-jacket barred his way.

In the moonlight the detective saw that the alert, bronzed young man
was smiling.

"That's all right," said Fearing. "He'll be back in a minute.
Besides, you don't want him. I'm the man you want."

THE LONG ARM

The safe was an old one that opened with a key. As adjutant, Captain
Swanson had charge of certain funds of the regiment and kept in the
safe about five thousand dollars. No one but himself and Rueff, his
first sergeant, had access to it. And as Rueff proved an alibi, the
money might have been removed by an outsider. The court-martial g