y with her own finger-tips.

"You need not be afraid, Jerry," she added encouragingly, "I shall not
tell any more things about that."

I drew away my hand irritably. "Well, well, what about the tide?" I
said.

Margarita's repulsed fingers lay loosely upcurled on her knees, which
she hunched in front of her, like a boy.

"Oh, it was only what you asked me, dear Jerry," she answered softly,
"while Roger was kissing me that kiss, the tide _did_ come in!"

CHAPTER VII

I RIDE KNIGHT ERRANT

It is easy to see that I should have made a poor novelist; it has been
hard enough for me to give you any idea of scenes I did not myself
witness, even though I had Roger and Margarita to help me out and an
intimate knowledge of both of them, and when I try to fancy myself
composing a tissue of fictitious events "all out of my head," as the
children say, my pen drops weakly out of my fingers, in horror at the
very thought.

But now, thank heaven, the pull is over. From now on, I need tell only
what I knew and saw, in the strange, interwoven life we three have
led. Three only? Nay, Harriet of the true heart, Harriet of the tender
hand, could we have been three without you? My fingers should wither
before they left your name unwritten.

I remember so well the night the telegram came. I had been vexed all
day. Everything had gone wrong. Roger, to meet whom I had come back
early to town, had neither turned up nor sent me any message; the day
had been sickeningly hot, with that mid-September heat that comes to
the Eastern States after the first crisp days and wilts everything and
everybody. I found my rooms atrociously stale and dusty, and worse
than that, perfectly useless, since by some miracle of carelessness I
had left my keys behind me at the shore and hadn't so much as a clean
collar to look forward to.

The club valet assured me that he had received no call for trunk or
bag, but that Roger had assuredly not entered the house for five days.
I went into his rooms, but they told me nothing, and I, worse luck,
should have been lost in his collar, so I glared angrily at the
drawers of linen, wired for my own keys and made for the Turkish bath.
There with a thrill of delight I discovered a complete change of
clothing; I had, before leaving for the summer, jumped hastily into
dinner things, leaving a heap of forgotten garments behind me and they
awaited me now, trim and creased, russet shoes polished, and a
wine-colored