ction with
the fact that they were born in a different station, or
half-contemptuous pity, as their temperament varied. Among them stood
Mrs. Hastings, Miss Winifred Rawlinson, and Agatha. The latter noticed
that Wyllard sat on a hatch forward near the head of the gangway, with
a pipe in his hand. She drew Mrs. Hastings's attention to it.

"Whatever is Mr. Wyllard doing there?" she asked.

Her companion, who was wrapped in furs, for there was a sting in the
east wind, smiled at her.

"That," she said, "is more than I can tell you; but Harry Wyllard seems
to find an interest in what other folks would consider most unpromising
things, and, what's more to the purpose, he's rather addicted to taking
a hand in. It's a habit that costs him something now and then."

Agatha asked nothing further. She was interested in Wyllard, but she
was at the moment more interested in the faces of those who swarmed on
board. She wondered what they had endured in the lands that had cast
them out, and what they might still have to bear. It seemed to her
that the murmur of their harsh voices went up in a great protest, an
inarticulate cry of sorrow. While she looked on the doctor held back a
long-haired man who was following a haggard woman shuffling in broken
boots. He drew him aside, and when, after he had apparently consulted
with the other official, two seamen hustled the man towards a second
gangway that led to the tug, the woman raised a wild, despairing cry.
It, however, seemed that she blocked the passage, and a quartermaster
drove her, expostulating in an agony of terror, forward among the rest.
Nobody appeared concerned about this alien's tragedy, except one man,
but Agatha was not astonished when Wyllard rose and quietly laid his
hand upon the official's shoulder.

A parley appeared to follow, somebody gave an order, and when the alien
was led back again the woman's cries subsided. Agatha looked at her
companion, and once more a smile crept into Mrs. Hastings's eyes.

"Yes," she said, "I guessed he would feel he had to stand in. That's a
man who can't see any one in trouble." Then she added, with a little
whimsical sigh, "He had a bonanza harvest last fall, any way."

They moved aft soon afterwards, and the _Scarrowmania_ was smoothly
sliding seawards with the first of the ebb when Agatha met Wyllard. He
glanced at the Lancashire sandhills, which were fading into a pale
ochre gleam amidst the haze over the starboa