You'll be losing all that color you got on
the ship."

"Soon--not just yet. I haven't seen you for such ages!" She pointed
at the bull-terrier. "Look at Tommy, standing there and staring. He
can't believe I've really come back. Father, there was a man on the
Lusitania with eyes exactly like Tommy's--all brown and bright--and
he used to stand and stare just like Tommy's doing."

"If I had been there," said her father wrathfully, "I'd have knocked
his head off."

"No, you wouldn't, because I'm sure he was really a very nice young
man. He had a chin rather like yours, father. Besides, you couldn't
have got at him to knock his head off, because he was traveling
second-class."

"Second-class? Then, you didn't talk with him?"

"We couldn't. You wouldn't expect him to shout at me across the
railing! Only, whenever I walked round the deck, he seemed to be
there."

"Staring!"

"He may not have been staring at me. Probably, he was just looking
the way the ship was going, and thinking of some girl in New York. I
don't think you can make much of a romance out of it, father."

"I don't want to, my dear. Princes don't travel in the
second-cabin."

"He may have been a prince in disguise."

"More likely a drummer," grunted Mr. McEachern.

"Drummers are often quite nice, aren't they?"

"Princes are nicer."

"Well, I'll go to bed and dream of the nicest one I can think of.
Come along, dogs. Stop biting my slipper, Tommy. Why can't you
behave, like Rastus? Still, you don't snore, do you? Aren't you
going to bed soon, father? I believe you've been sitting up late and
getting into all sorts of bad habits while I've been away. I'm sure
you have been smoking too much. When you've finished that cigar,
you're not even to think of another till to-morrow. Promise!"

"Not one?"

"Not one. I'm not going to have my father getting like the people
you read about in the magazine advertisements. You don't want to
feel sudden shooting pains, do you?"

"No, my dear."

"And have to take some awful medicine?"

"No."

"Then, promise."

"Very well, my dear. I promise."

As the door closed, the captain threw away the stump he was smoking,
and remained for a moment in thought. Then, he drew another cigar
from his case, lighted it, and resumed the study of the little
note-book. It was past three o'clock when he went to his bedroom.

CHAPTER V

A THIEF IN THE NIGHT

How long the light had been darting about the room lik