nd had
stepped to her side as if to protect her. The doctor stood listening in
amazement to Lucy's outbreak. He knew her reasons, and was appalled at
her rashness.

"No! Don't--DON'T!" Lucy was looking up into the captain's face now,
all her terror in her eyes.

"Why, I can't see what good that'll do!" For the moment he thought that
the excitement had turned her head. "Isaac Polhemus'll know him," he
continued, "soon's he sets his eyes on him. And even if I was mean
enough to do it, which I ain't, these letters would tell. They've got
to go to the Superintendent 'long with everything else found on bodies.
Your name's on some o' 'em and mine's on some others. We'll git 'em
ag'in, but not till Gov'ment see 'em."

These were the letters which had haunted her!

"Give them to me! They're mine!" she cried, seizing the captain's
fingers and trying to twist the letters from his grasp.

A frown gathered on the captain's brow and his voice had an ugly ring
in it:

"But I tell ye the Superintendent's got to have 'em for a while. That's
regulations, and that's what we carry out. They ain't goin' to be
lost--you'll git 'em ag'in."

"He sha'n't have them, I tell you!" Her voice rang now with something
of her old imperious tone. "Nobody shall have them. They're mine--not
yours--nor his. Give them--"

"And break my oath!" interrupted the captain. For the first time he
realized what her outburst meant and what inspired it.

"What difference does that make in a matter like this? Give them to me.
You dare not keep them," she cried, tightening her fingers in the
effort to wrench the letters from his hand. "Sister--doctor--speak to
him! Make him give them to me--I will have them!"

The captain brushed aside her hand as easily as a child would brush
aside a flower. His lips were tight shut, his eyes flashing.

"You want me to lie to the department?"

"YES!" She was beside herself now with fear and rage. "I don't care who
you lie to! You brute--you coward-- I want them! I will have them!"
Again she made a spring for the letters.

"See here, you she-devil. Look at me!"--the words came in cold, cutting
tones. "You're the only thing livin', or dead, that ever dared ask
Nathaniel Holt to do a thing like that. And you think I'd do it to
oblige ye? You're rotten as punk--that's what ye are! Rotten from yer
keel to yer top-gallant! and allus have been since I knowed ye!"

Jane started forward and faced the now enraged man.

"You