eart, shrank as though
I had added physical insult to my verbal taunts. Anyway I turned, I
was fast in the net of circumstance, fanged by the springs of
misapprehension.... Well, then, but one thing remained. She had said
it was a man's place to fight, and so now it would be! I must go on,
and take my punishment until justice had been done. Justice and my own
success I no longer confused in my own mind; but in my soul was the
grim resolution that justice should first be done to one human soul,
even though that chanced to be my own. After that, I should get her
again in the hands of her friends and myself; indeed, disappear beyond
all seeking, in parts of the world best known to myself. If I myself
were fair, why should not fairness as well be given to me?

And with no more than this established, and nothing definite in plan,
either, for the present, I mechanically opened the door of the taxi
for her when the driver pulled up and bent a querying face about to
ask whether or not we now were opposite Slip K. I noted that he did
not at once drive away. Evidently he sat for some moments gazing after
us as we disappeared in the gloom of the river-front. His tale, as I
afterward learned, enabled the morning papers to print a conclusive
story describing the abduction of Miss Emory and her undoubted
retention on the stolen yacht, which, after lying at or near New
Orleans, some time that night, once more mysteriously had
disappeared.

No doubt remained, according to this new story, that the supplies put
aboard at Slip K by Lavallier and Thibodeau had gone to this very
craft, the stolen yacht! With this came many wild and confusing
accounts and descriptions, including a passionate interview with Mr.
Calvin Davidson, of New York, who had announced his intention of
overhauling these ruffians, at any cost whatsoever; and much counsel
to the city officials, mingled with the bosom-beating of one
enterprising journal which declared it had put in commission a yacht
of its own, under charge of two of its ablest reporters, who had
instructions to take up the chase and to remain out until the mystery
had been solved and this beautiful young woman had been rescued from
her horrible situation and restored again to her home. There were more
portraits of Helena--furnished, most like, from Cal Davidson's
collection; one also of Aunt Lucinda (from a photograph of far earlier
days); and lastly, a half-page portrait of myself, the unnamed ruffian