picture, greener than ever and unvexed by the wind.
The rain was slight and fine. The boat was swinging northward toward a
small blue rift in the gray. At the room's farther door the mate was
leaving the Gilmores for the forecastle.

Without a stir she asked: "Why don't _you_ bring Basile?"

"I must stay with our friends here."

The surprised girl glanced across at the players.

Side by side they also were gazing out and speaking low. "I'd like to
know why with them."

"And I must tell you."

She faintly tossed, gazing out again: "Why 'must'?"

"Because to you I _can_--tell things."

"Haven't you told your father yet--about--Phyllis? Humph!--had to
practise on me first."

"Yes. But there's a better reason--for everything I've ever told you."

She slowly faced him, and he added: "I want your help."

"For what? Not the Gilmores?"

"Yes, for them too now. They're in real danger."

"Fr'--from what? Not--not from--my brothers?"

"The twins, yes, and the general, John the Baptist, and a dozen more.
They've guessed it out that the Gilmores----"

"Are--So have I! A, b, ab----"

Hugh was mute. She glanced round at the players' backs and then again at
him, asking with soft abruptness:

"Where's the bishop? With mom-a yet?"

Hugh kept silence. "No, you know he's not," she answered for him. In her
steady eyes he could see, growing every moment, a new sense of the
fearful plight of things and of her relation to them. Her young bosom
rose and fell, and when her lips parted to speak again their corners
twitched. "He--he's the new case! I will mention it! I've a good right.
Why shouldn't I?"

"Only that he didn't want you to know. He wanted you--us--all, without
knowing, to go right on with the programme. We must. Even now you will,
won't you?"

She could only nod. Just then Mrs. Gilmore's maid, in a long burnoose,
with umbrellas and wraps, rose into sight close below, on a stair from
the passenger-guards, spread one of her umbrellas and looked eagerly
about for her mistress. One glance went up to Ramsey, who beckoned
through the glass, but the maid gave no sign of seeing her. The slight
rain had momentarily freshened, and she was so muffled to the eyes in
the light veil which was always on her head or shoulders in pretty
Spanish fashion that when she started forward round the skylights for
the other side of the roof Ramsey laughed to Hugh:

"Why, I know it's Harriet by her veil, don't you?"

"I know only