pocket. Then he caught hold of the rope and climbed up,
hand over hand.

It was unaccustomed work for a landsman, but Drew was supple and
athletic and he mounted rapidly. Not for a fortune would he have
faltered with those hazel eyes fixed upon him. With the girl watching
him, he felt as though he could have climbed to the top of the
Woolworth Building.

It was his misfortune that he could not see the look of admiration in
her eyes as they followed his movements--a look, however, which by the
exercise of maidenly repression she had changed to one of mere
gratitude when at last, breathing a little quickly, he approached her
with the packet he had recovered in his hand.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, taking it eagerly and clasping it tightly, "how
very good of you to take all that trouble! I don't know how to thank
you enough."

"It was no trouble at all," Drew responded. "I count myself lucky to
have happened along just when you needed me."

His speech won him a radiant smile, and he promptly decided that the
dimple in her cheek was not merely distracting. It was divine!

There was a moment of embarrassed silence. The young man was wild to
pursue the conversation. But he was too much of a gentleman to presume
on the service he had rendered, and he knew that he should lift his hat
and depart.

One feeble resource was left by which he might reconcile duty with
desire.

"It's very hard getting about on this crowded pier," he ventured, "and
you see there are some rough characters around. You might perhaps like
to have me see you safely to the street when you are ready to go?"

She hesitated for a moment, her own inclination evidently battling with
convention. But convention won.

"I think not," she said, flashing him a smile that softened her refusal
and at the same time completed his undoing. "You see it is broad
daylight and I am perfectly safe. Thank you for the offer though, and
thank you again for what you have done for me."

It was dismissal, none the less final because it was gracious, and Drew
yielded to the inevitable.

He glanced back once or twice, assuring himself that it was his plain
duty to keep her in sight in order to see that nothing happened to her.
He found himself wishing that she would drop the letters overboard
again--that the one-eyed man would reappear--that something would
occur, however slight, to call him to her side once more. It was with
a thrill of exultation that he saw her