r. Van Alstyne."

"We're not dead yet," he replied from the door, "and maybe we'll need
you before the day's over. If anybody can sail the old bark to shore,
you can do it, Minnie. You've been steering it for years. The old doctor
was no navigator, and you and I know it."

It was blowing a blizzard by that time, and Miss Patty was the only one
who came out to the spring-house until after three o'clock. She shook
the snow off her furs and stood by the fire, looking at me and not
saying anything for fully a minute.

"Well," she said finally, "aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"Why?" I asked, and swallowed hard.

"To be in all this trouble and not let me know. I've just this minute
heard about it. Can't we get the police?"

"Mr. Van Alstyne is trying," I said, "but I don't hope much. Like as not
Mr. Dick will turn up tomorrow and say his calendar was a day slow."

I gave her a glass of water, and I noticed when she took it how pale she
was. But she held it up and smiled over it at me.

"Here's to everything turning out better than we expect!" she said, and
made a face as she drank the water. I thought that she was thinking of
her own troubles as well as mine, for she put down the glass and stood
looking at her engagement ring, a square red ruby in an old-fashioned
setting. It was a very large ruby, but I've seen showier rings.

"There isn't anything wrong, Miss Patty, is there?" I asked, and she
dropped her hand and looked at me.

"Oh, no," she said. "That is, nothing much, Minnie. Father is--I think
he's rather ridiculous about some things, but I dare say he'll come
around. I don't mind his fussing with me, but--if it should get in the
papers, Minnie! A breath of unpleasant notoriety now would be fatal!"

"I don't see why," I said sharply. "The royal families of Europe have a
good bit of unpleasant notoriety themselves occasionally. I should think
they'd fall over themselves to get some good red American blood. Blue
blood's bad blood; you can ask any doctor."

But she only smiled.

"You're like father, Minnie," she said. "You'll never understand."

"I'm not sure I want to," I snapped, and fell to polishing glasses.

The storm stopped a little at three and most of the guests waded down
through the snow for bridge and spring water. By that time the afternoon
train was in, and no Mr. Dick. Mr. Sam was keeping the lawyer, Mr.
Stitt, in the billiard room, and by four o'clock they'd had everything
that was in t