line of the tide. It would take a
very few minutes to cut these ropes. What took place afterward he would
not wait to see. He therefore reluctantly gave Flora the desired
promise.

When the houseboat party boarded Tom's motor launch for the ride to the
"Merry Maid" after Madge's tragic scene in the dining room they were
strangely silent. Even Miss Jenny Ann, who had not been with the girls,
did not know what had happened. A glance at Madge's face was enough to
reveal to her that it had been serious. The little captain sat white
and cold as a statue. She looked like the ghost of the radiant girl who
had crossed the bay a few hours before. She shed no tears, and seemed
rather to resent any expression of sympathy. When Eleanor took her
cousin's cold hand, Madge held it loosely for a minute, then allowed it
slowly to slide from the grasp of her icy fingers.

When Tom Curtis helped her out of his launch he had the courage to
whisper: "Of course, dear girl, we are all with you. Don't you worry.
Just leave matters to me. I'll see that Flora Harris doesn't escape
censure. I am going to inform her father of her conduct to-night."

Madge smiled a faint good night to Tom when he took her limp hand in
his own.

Once the girls were on the deck of their own boat she turned quietly to
their chaperon.

"Miss Jenny Ann," she murmured, "the girls will tell you what happened
to-night. I can't talk of it now. May I lie down on the couch in the
living room? Will every one please leave me alone?"

The three other girls and Miss Jenny Ann sat for a while on the deck of
their pretty boat. Eleanor kept her head buried in her chaperon's lap.
She cried a little, partly from sympathy with Madge and partly from
amazement and horror at the story she had just heard.

Very quietly Lillian told what had happened.

"Madge is right," Miss Jenny Ann concluded at the end of Lillian's
recital. "We must not talk to her of this insult to her father. It is
enough to let her know we do not believe it."

The little party did not linger out on deck after the story had been
told. It was midnight and chilly. The wind was blowing over the water,
lashing the waves to a white foam. As Miss Jenny Ann retired to her
cabin the thought came to her that they had lingered too long aboard
their houseboat. It was getting late in September. Any day they might
be overtaken by an equinoctial storm. She wished that they had brought
more coal and fresh water aboard the