ive up trying
... He said a launching at noon and it _was_ at noon, you can bet your
life on that! ... They say a woman tried to scare the old man this
morning ... He just laughed in her face and came on over."

Almost as the man had finished speaking the crowd surged forward. And
in a twinkling Hilmer's machine had swept past, leaving Fred,
trembling from head to foot, staring stupidly into a cloud of dust ...
He had not even glimpsed the occupants! But his failure to achieve
whatever vague plan was buffeting him about drove him back to San
Francisco. His confused mind had worked with the rational capacity for
details which characterizes madness. He knew that Hilmer must wait for
the automobile ferry...that the regular passenger boat would reach the
other side at least a half hour in advance.

He had been prepared this time for the appearance of Hilmer's car. It
came off the boat preceded by a thin line of automobiles, moving
slowly. ... For a moment he wondered how he would achieve his purpose,
and the next thing he knew he had leaped aboard the running board...
He remembered long after that his wife had given a cry, that Mrs.
Hilmer had stirred ever so slightly, that Hilmer's eyes had widened.
Then out of a tense moment of suppressed confusion he had heard his
wife's voice floating toward him as she said:

"Ah, then you were not drowned, after all!"

With amazing effrontery he threw open the door and pressed down the
emergency seat opposite her.

"No... I swam out of that black pool!"

A slight tremor ran through her. Mrs. Hilmer smiled.

Recalling the scene, he remembered how outwardly commonplace were the
moments which followed. Even Hilmer had been surprised into
banalities. Fred Starratt might have parted with them but yesterday,
for any indications to the contrary, and for an instant he had found
all sense of tragedy swallowed up in amazement at the passive tenacity
of the conventions.

But sitting there, facing this trio, each busy with his own swift
thought, it gradually dawned upon Fred Starratt that now they were
afraid of him. Like a captured and blinded Samson he was in a position
to bring the temple walls crashing down upon them all. _They_ might
elect to be silent, but what a voice _he_ could raise!... He had come
out of a chuckling silence to hear Hilmer saying between almost shut
teeth:

"I suppose you'll be needing money now, Starratt... Railroad rates
have all been raised."

He felt at