id Marshall simply. "I should have
liked to have resigned. It's a prettier finish. After forty years--to be
dismissed by cable is--it's a poor way of ending it."

Miss Cairns rose and walked to the door. There she turned and looked
back.

"I am sorry," she said. And both understood that in saying no more than
that she had best shown her sympathy.

An hour later the sympathy of Admiral Hardy was expressed more directly.

"If he comes on board my ship," roared that gentleman, "I'll push him
down an ammunition hoist and break his damned neck!"

Marshall laughed delightedly. The loyalty of his old friend was never so
welcome.

"You'll treat him with every courtesy," he said. "The only satisfaction
he gets out of this is to see that he has hurt me. We will not give him
that satisfaction."

But Marshall found that to conceal his wound was more difficult than
he had anticipated. When, at tea time, on the deck of the war-ship, he
again met Senator Hanley and the guests of the SERAPIS, he could not
forget that his career had come to an end. There was much to remind
him that this was so. He was made aware of it by the sad, sympathetic
glances of the women; by their tactful courtesies; by the fact that
Livingstone, anxious to propitiate Hanley, treated him rudely; by the
sight of the young officers, each just starting upon a career of honor,
and possible glory, as his career ended in humiliation; and by the big
war-ship herself, that recalled certain crises when he had only to press
a button and war-ships had come at his bidding.

At five o'clock there was an awkward moment. The Royal Mail boat, having
taken on her cargo, passed out of the harbor on her way to Jamaica, and
dipped her colors. Senator Hanley, abandoned to his fate, observed her
departure in silence.

Livingstone, hovering at his side, asked sympathetically: "Have they
answered your cable, sir?"

"They have," said Hanley gruffly.

"Was it--was it satisfactory?" pursued the diplomat.

"It WAS," said the senator, with emphasis.

Far from discouraged, Livingstone continued his inquiries.

"And when," he asked eagerly, "are you going to tell him?"

"Now!" said the senator.

The guests were leaving the ship. When all were seated in the admiral's
steam launch, the admiral descended the accommodation ladder and himself
picked up the tiller ropes.

"Mr. Marshall," he called, "when I bring the launch broadside to the
ship and stop her, you will stand rea