y one
else would mean a heavy loss to me. Then, you see, this steamer will
land Tess at home in less than a month. If she waits for one of the
German ships to call she may have to wait three or four months. And her
mother wants her badly."

Again Carr was silent. He knew that Mrs. Remington had always been more
or less of an invalid for many years. She was a Portuguese of Macao, and
though her three daughters and two sons were strong and robust, she had
always struck him as being of a delicate physique--the very antithesis
of her husband, whose fame as an athlete was known from one end of the
Pacific to the other. Presently Carr sat up.

"Do you mind going away, Tessa, for a few minutes?" he said. "I want to
talk to your father on some business matters."

A vivid flush spread over Tessa's pale cheeks. "Oh, I'm so sorry,
Harvey."

She rose and walked aft to where the mate was standing, and began to
talk to him, her heart beating double quick time the while, for she had
never forgotten Harvey Carr, though he had never spoken a word of love
to her in the olden days when she was a girl of sixteen, and he was the
master of her father's schooner.

And now, and now, she thought, they would be together for nearly a
month. And what were the "business matters," she wondered, about which
he wanted to speak to her father. Perhaps he was coming to them again!
How hollow-cheeked, yellow, and dreadful he looked, except for his eyes,
which were always kind and soft! She was nineteen, and was no longer the
child she was three years ago, when, with her gun on her shoulder, she
used to accompany Harvey Carr and her brothers out pigeon-shooting in
the dark, silent mountain forest of Ponape. And then, too, she knew she
was beautiful; not so beautiful, perhaps, as her two sisters, Carmela
and Librada, whom she had heard Harvey say were the handsomest girls
he had ever seen. But yet--and again a pleasant flush tinged her pale
cheeks--he had always liked to talk to her most, although she was only a
girl of sixteen, just returned from school in California.

She sighed softly to herself, and then looking up suddenly saw the
kindly-faced mate regarding her with a smile in his honest grey eyes,
for she was answering his questions at random, and he guessed that her
thoughts were with the sick trader.

As soon as she was out of hearing Carr spoke hurriedly, for he every
moment expected to see either Chard or the captain appear on deck.

"J