threatening.

He was just going to burst out into a noisy fit of abusive language,
when she stopped him short with a remark which quite startled him.

"There, there, what an impatient man you are, surely, Captain Robinson.
Go up stairs and see for yourself why he ain't coming home."

The captain could only infer one thing from her words.

Murray was back.

Yes, he was not coming home, because he had already come.

This explained the housekeeper's joyous spirits, which seemed to bubble
over in her.

"She's a nice old gal," said Robinson to himself, as he mounted the
stairs, "and I'll stand her a trifle after I have applied my leech to
her master again. Ha, ha, ha!"

The jovial captain laughed at the quaint conceit.

He rarely enjoyed the prospect of once more gloating over the miserable
Murray writhing under the moral pressure.

"I'll make him bleed handsome for keeping away so long," thought this
jovial mariner. "I wonder how he'll enjoy the leech after such a long
while?"

His hand rested upon the handle of the door.

What a startler it would be for Mr. Murray.

"I'll knock," thought the jovial Captain Robinson; "he'll think it's
Mother Wilmot again. Such larks!"

He knocked.

"Come in."

How changed the voice sounded.

"He's caught cold," thought the practical joker.

He opened the door.

Closed it carefully behind him to guard against intrusion.

Then he turn and faced--Joe Deering!

* * * *

Jovial Captain Robinson stood aghast.

The sight of his old friend literally petrified him.

Deering stood facing the jovial scoundrel, his hands leaning on the
table.

Not a muscle of his face moved.

A cold, settled expression was in his eyes.

So fixed, so steady, that they might have been set in the head of a
dead man.

The jovial Robinson was tongue-tied for a time.

* * * *

"Joe!"

This monosyllable he faltered after a long while, and after a very big
effort.

But Joe Deering said never a word in reply, nor did he move a muscle.

"Joe."

Deering stared at him with the same fixed, glassy eyes, until Jovial
Captain Robinson had a hideous idea flash across him.

Was it really a living man there?

He fastened a fixed, fascinating look upon the figure of the friend he
had so villainously betrayed, and retreating a step, groped about
behind him, for the handle of the door.

At last he got