queried, less
seriously. "Don't you think a man ought to wish to do something for that
fellow's little girl?"

Madge smiled. She knew that men hated tears. "Perhaps I shall ask you
to help me some day," she said. "I thank you for your interest and for
the splendid things you have said of my father. It is good to know that
some of his brother officers believe in him, and because you have had
faith in him I will tell you this much: my father was not guilty of the
charges laid at his door. In being true to his own code of honor he
lost his good name. There is only one person in the world who can give
it back to him, and because I respect my father's wishes my lips are
also sealed. But, alive or dead, Captain Robert Morton was or is
innocent."

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SURPRISE

Up and down, up and down the old wharf, with his eyes turned ever
toward the sea, a young man walked. His face was tanned, but it had a
haggard look under the sun-burn. Tom Curtis, alone among all the
friends and relatives, believed that news might yet be heard of the
lost girls. That day he had crossed over to Portsmouth to receive the
report from a boat that had been specially sent out with a dredging
machine to drag the bottom of the bay near the spot where the houseboat
had been anchored. The report received was--no news! No news was good
news--from such a source.

The houseboat party had hardly realized the tremendous anxiety and
excitement that their mysterious disappearance off the face of the
waters had caused. Mr. and Mrs. Butler had come from their home to
devote every hour of the day and night to searching for the lost girls.
Mr. and Mrs. Seldon had only gone back to Philadelphia the day before,
as Tom had promised to telegraph them the moment that any news was
received. Dr. Alden had left his patients to take care of themselves
while he endeavored to trace the whereabouts of his beloved Phil. Even
Miss Matilda Tolliver, principal and proprietor of the Select Seminary
for Girls at Harborpoint, Maryland, had departed from her school for
the space of forty-eight hours to make the proper personal
investigations for her four lost pupils and her teacher. Until she
appeared on the scene herself, she felt sure no really intelligent
effort had been made to find them.

Mrs. Curtis was still at Old Point Comfort with Tom. Madeleine had gone
back to New York. Mrs. Curtis felt herself to be responsible for the
whole disaster of the lost ho