s in three weeks.'

'Read the book,' said Herr Tiefenbach earnestly, as he shook hands.
'It is a deep book.'

'Do not forget me!' cried Stromboli sentimentally, and he kissed
Margaret's gloves several times.

'Good-bye,' said Fraeulein Ottilie. 'Every one is sorry when you go!'

Margaret was not a gushing person, but she stooped and kissed the
cheerful little woman, and pressed her small hand affectionately.

'And everybody is glad when you come, my dear,' she said.

For Fraeulein Ottilie was perhaps the only person in the company whom
Cordova really liked, and who did not jar dreadfully on her at one
time or another.

Another blast from the horn and they were all gone, leaving her and
Griggs standing by the rail on the upper promenade deck. The little
party gathered again on the pier when they had crossed the plank, and
made farewell signals to the two, and then disappeared. Unconsciously
Margaret gave a little sigh of relief, and Griggs noticed it, as he
noticed most things, but said nothing.

There was silence for a while, and the gangplank was still in place
when the horn blew a third time, longer than before.

'How very odd!' exclaimed Griggs, a moment after the sound had ceased.

'What is odd?' Margaret asked.

She saw that he was looking down, and her eyes followed his. A
square-shouldered man in mourning was walking up the plank in a
leisurely way, followed by a well-dressed English valet, who carried a
despatch-box in a leathern case.

'It's not possible!' Margaret whispered in great surprise.

'Perfectly possible,' Griggs answered, in a low voice. 'That is Rufus
Van Torp.'

Margaret drew back from the rail, though the new comer was already out
of sight on the lower promenade deck, to which the plank was laid to
suit the height of the tide. She moved away from the door of the first
cabin companion.

Griggs went with, her, supposing that she wished to walk up and down.
Numbers of other passengers were strolling about on the side next to
the pier, waiting to see the start. Margaret went on forward, turned
the deck-house and walked to the rail on the opposite side, where
there was no one. Griggs glanced at her face and thought that she
seemed disturbed. She looked straight before her at the closed iron
doors of the next pier, at which no ship was lying.

'I wish I knew you better,' she said suddenly.

Griggs looked at her quietly. It did not occur to him to make a
trivial and complimentary an