ed to me that the vigilance of the officers was exerted largely
to prevent an escape from the vessel, and not sufficiently for the
safety of those on board. I spoke of this, and a guard was placed at
the companionway again. Thus I saw Elsa Lee for the last time until
the trial.

She was dressed, as she had been in the afternoon, in a dark cloth suit
of some sort, and I did not see her until I had spoken to the officer
in charge. She turned, at my voice, and called me to join her where
she stood.

"We are back again, Leslie."

"Yes, Miss Lee."

"Back to--what? To live the whole thing over again in a courtroom! If
only we could go away, anywhere, and try to forget!"

She had not expected any answer, and I had none ready. I was
thinking--Heaven help me--that there were things I would not forget if
I could: the lift of her lashes as she looked, up at me; the few words
we had had together, the day she had told me the deck was not clean;
the night I had touched her hand with my lips.

"We are to be released, I believe," she said, "on our own--some legal
term; I forget it."

"Recognizance, probably."

"Yes. You do not know law as well as medicine?"

"I am sorry--no; and I know very little medicine."

"But you sewed up a wound!"

"As a matter of fact," I admitted, "that was my initial performance,
and it is badly done. It--it puckers."

She turned on me a trifle impatiently.

"Why do you make such a secret of your identity?" she demanded. "Is it
a pose? Or--have you a reason for concealing it?"

"It is not a pose; and I have nothing to be ashamed of, unless
poverty--"

"Of course not. What do you mean by poverty?"

"The common garden variety sort. I have hardly a dollar in the world.
As to my identity,--if it interests you at all, I graduated in medicine
last June. I spent the last of the money that was to educate me in
purchasing a dress suit to graduate in, and a supper by way of
celebration. The dress suit helped me to my diploma. The supper gave
me typhoid."

"So that was it!"

"Not jail, you see."

"And what are you going to do now?"

I glanced around to where a police officer stood behind us watchfully.

"Now? Why, now I go to jail in earnest."

"You have been very good to us," she said wistfully. "We have all been
strained and nervous. Maybe you have not thought I noticed or--or
appreciated what you were doing; but I have, always. You have given
all of yourself for us. You