e to say farewell
to her.

She stared at me out of a face from which the color was gone, the great
eyes dilating as the truth came home to her. From her throat broke a
startled, stifled little cry.

"You!"

I took her in my arms and her tired body came to me. The sensitive mouth
trembled, the eyes closed, a shiver of relief passed through her. She
clung to me as a frightened child does to its mother, burying her soft
cheeks on my shoulder.

Then came sobs. The figure of my love rocked. The horror of what she had
been through engulfed her as she told me her story in broken words, in
convulsive shivers, in silence so poignant that they stabbed my heart
like a needle.

It was such a tale as no girl should have to tell, least of all to the
man she loves. But I had come in time--I had come in time. The knowledge
of that warmed me like champagne.

I whispered love to her as I kissed in a passion of tenderness the
golden hair, the convolutions of the pink ears, the shadows beneath the
sad, tired eyes.

"Tell me, how did you come?" she begged.

I told her, in the fewest possible words, for it might be that our time
was brief. Briefly I outlined a plan for her rescue.

I would send Alderson and Smith back for aid and would hide somewhere in
the vessel during their absence, to be ready in case she needed help.

When Blythe arrived I would join her and barricade the cabin to protect
her until our friends had won the ship.

"But if he should find you before----"

I said then what any man with the red blood of youth still running
strong in his veins would say to the woman he loves when she is in
peril. Let it cost me what it would I was going to free her from these
wolves.

Her deep eyes, soft with love, aglow with an adorable trust, met mine
for a long instant.

"Do as you will, dear. But go now--before any one comes. And--God with
us, Jack!"

Her arm slid round my neck, she drew my face down to hers, and kissed me
with a passion that I had not known was in her.

"Remember, Jack--if I never see you again--no matter what happens--I
love you, dearest, for ever and ever."

She whispered it brokenly, then pushed me from her toward the door.

The last glimpse I had of her she was standing there in the shadows,
like a divine incarnation of love, her eyes raining upon me the soft
light that is the sweetest glimpse of heaven given to a man in this
storm-battered world.

CHAPTER XXIV

A RAT IN A TRAP