trangely as she asked: "You weren't
ill, at all?"

"Yes, I honestly was--with unhappiness; but not as near dead as he
pretended."

"And you're in no danger by talking to me?"

"The greatest danger--but not from man-made prisons."

"Oh, it feels so good to be up in this fresh air," she said
irrelevantly, raising her face to the sky and taking a deep breath.

"He was a scoundrel to keep you shut in down there," I declared; and
then she told me of the old fellow's fabrications, really such atrocious
lies that for a while I was undecided whether to thrash him or laugh. As
it turned out, I laughed; because she did.

She had moved to the rail and rested her arms on it, leaning over and
looking pensively down at the water. I, also, went to stand by her, but,
in turning, my eyes happened to glance through one of the cabin
portlights at Tommy. He was seated comfortably in a deep chair,
Doloria's box of candy stood on the table within easy reach, the
newspaper was in his hands, a cigarette hung from his lips, and Echochee
was just bringing him the basket of fruit I had taken so much care at
Key West to have made attractive.

"Picture of Tommy hurrying down for his cigarettes," I whispered. "Peep
at him!"

As she leaned forward and the light fell on her serious face, the
attractive curves of mischief, always so maddening, touched the corners
of her mouth.

"Isn't he a dear," she murmured. "And there's nothing in the safe but
the captain's old pipes?"

"That's all. Tommy's waiting to soothe the professor when he makes that
discovery, and keep him from coming on deck."

She laughed guardedly, but there was no great spirit of fun in either of
us, and again we turned back to our contemplation of the water, for a
long time looking down at it in moody silence. I instinctively felt that
she had not altered her decision.

In the distance off our starboard bow a hairlike line of slowly
brightening silver, forerunner of the climbing moon, touched the far
horizon. It resembled a shining lake upon a great dark waste, and I told
her it was my love trying to light my life that had turned to night
without her.

I know we were subdued by the witchery that comes with watching for the
moon, because when its dome appeared her fingers gently tightened on my
sleeve; nor did we speak until it stood serenely balanced upon the
world's edge, sending to our feet a silvery pathway that twinkled on the
waves. And then, by the merest acciden