into the
house. Dr. Reynolds accepted Sally on sight and the girl quickly
adjusted herself to the routine of the sick chamber.

At eleven o'clock Archie saw the Heart o' Dreams launch approaching
Huddleston and leaving Congdon to answer any call from the Governor's
bedside, hurried to meet it.

Ruth and Isabel had crossed alone and their stress of mind and heart was
manifest before they landed.

"I felt it; I knew that it would come!" cried Ruth. "If only you hadn't
gone there! It wasn't worth the sacrifice."

"But we have every reason to hope! We must support him with our faith
that he will come out of it!"

"I should never have permitted either of you to come to this place,"
said Isabel. "I shall always feel that it was my fault."

The obligation to cheer them raised his own spirits as he explained the
nature of the Governor's injury while they sat on the hotel veranda. He
described the fight at the barricade with reservations, mentioning not
at all the fact that a man had died as the result. They understood as
fully as he that the whole affair must be suffered to slip into oblivion
as quickly as possible.

"The complications are so endless!" said Isabel with a sigh. "In that
mass of mail you delivered last night I found a letter from Mrs. Congdon
saying that she would arrive today--almost at once, in fact!"

"The prospect isn't wholly pleasing!" he exclaimed, looking at his
watch. "I've played the very devil in the Congdons' affairs. I suppose I
should lift my hat politely as she steps from the train and tell her
that I'm the brute who attempted to make her a widow. She will of course
recognize me instantly as the gentleman who escaped with her in a taxi
after the kidnaping of her daughter."

"It seems to me," said Isabel soberly, "that from the very moment you
and I unfolded our napkins on the tragic night of your sister's dinner
the world has been upside down. If we should ever tell all that has
happened, and how we have been whirled about and made to do things I'm
sure we were never intended to do, there wouldn't be one sane person
anywhere who'd believe it. I feel like crying all the time! And I'm not
sure that I'm not responsible for all of it, every bit of it! Why, I may
as well tell you now that I, poor, weak, foolish I, bade Putney Congdon
take horse and ride gaily through the world, carving people with his
stout sword! And I played the same trick on you!"

"Oh, he told me all about that!" laughed