sandbar. He knew, what the fish-dock
man probably did not know, that the pursuer was the woman's husband.

"What'll I tell her?" Terabon asked himself.

With that question he uncovered an unsuspected depth to his feelings. It
was a dark, dull day. The waves rolled and fell back, sometimes the wind
seeming the stronger and then the current asserting its weight. With the
wind's help over the stern, Terabon swiftly passed the caving bend and
landed in the lee above the young woman's boat.

He carried some things he had bought for her into the kitchen and they
sat in the cabin to read newspapers and magazines which he had
obtained.

"I heard some news, too," he told her.

"Yes? What news?"

"The fish-dock man at New Madrid told me to tell the people along that a
detective has gone on down, looking for a woman."

"A detective looking for a woman?" she repeated.

"A man the name of Carline----"

"Oh!" she shrugged her shoulders. "Why didn't you tell me!"

He flushed. Almost an hour had elapsed since he had returned. He had
found it difficult to mention the subject.

"I did not tell you either," he apologized, "that I happened to meet Mr.
Carline up at Island No. 8, when I had no idea the good fortune would
come to me of meeting you, whose--whose pictures he showed me. I could
not--I saw----There was----"

"And you didn't tell me," she accused him.

"It seemed to me none of my affair. I'm a newspaper man--I----"

"And did that excuse you from letting me know of his--of that pursuit of
me?"

His newspaper impartiality had failed him, and he hung his head in doubt
and shame. She claimed, and she deserved, his friendship; the last
vestige of his pretence of mere observation was torn from him. He was a
human among humans--and he had a fervid if unexpected thought about the
influence and exasperation of the river out yonder.

"I could not tell you!" he cried. "I didn't think--it seemed----"

"You know, then, you saw why I had left him?"

"Liquor!" he grasped at the excuse. "Oh, that was plain enough."

"Perhaps a woman could forgive liquor," she suggested, thoughtfully,
"but not--not stupidity and indifference. He never disturbed the dust on
any of the books of his library. Oh, what they meant my books mean to
me!"

She turned and stared at her book shelves.

"Suppose you hadn't found books?" he asked, glad of the opportunity for
a diversion.

"I'd be dead, I think," she surmised, "and one day, I did del