hirled around to face Peter Stark--Peter quietly amused and very
much the master of the situation.

"You needn't think," said he, "that you have any chance on earth of
escaping my fond attentions, Hugh. I'll go to the ends of the earth
after you, if you won't let me go with you. I've fixed it up with Nelly
to wait until I bring you home, a well man, before we get married; and
if you refuse to be my best man--well, there won't be any party. You can
make up your mind to that."

V

WILFUL MISSING

It was one o'clock in the morning before Whitaker allowed himself to be
persuaded; fatigue reenforced every stubborn argument of Peter Stark's
to overcome his resistance. It was a repetition of the episode of Mary
Ladislas recast and rewritten: the stronger will overcame the
admonitions of a saner judgment. Whitaker gave in. "Oh, have your own
way," he said at length, unconsciously iterating the words that had won
him a bride. "If it must be...."

Peter put him to bed, watched over him through the night, and the next
morning carried him on to New Bedford, where they superintended the
outfitting of Peter's yacht, the _Adventuress_. Beyond drawing heavily
on his bank and sending Drummond a brief note, Whitaker failed to renew
communication with his home. He sank into a state of semi-apathetic
content; he thought little of anything beyond the business of the
moment; the preparations for what he was pleased to term his funeral
cruise absorbed him to the exclusion of vain repinings or anxiety for
the welfare of his adventitious wife. Apparently his sudden
disappearance had not caused the least ripple on the surface of life in
New York; the newspapers, at all events, slighted the circumstance
unanimously: to his complete satisfaction.

Within the week the _Adventuress_ sailed.

She was five months out of port before Whitaker began to be conscious
that he was truly accursed. There came a gradual thickening of the
shadows that threatened to eclipse his existence. And then, one day as
they dined with the lonely trader of an isolated station in the
D'Entrecasteaux Islands, he fell from his chair as if poleaxed. He
regained consciousness only to shiver with the chill of the wind that's
fanned by the wings of death. It was impossible to move him. The agonies
of the damned were his when, with exquisite gentleness, they lifted him
to a bed....

Stark sailed in the _Adventuress_ before sundown of the same day,
purposing to fe