rd the _Aquila_.
"Well, why not?" he asked himself again. "Why not?" and picked up his hat.

So he came to Pier Number Three and, looking down the gangway as he
crossed, saw her standing in the little group awaiting him on the after
deck. Morganstein spoke to him and introduced him to the ladies. He did
not avoid her look and, under his appraising eyes, he saw the color begin
to play in her face. Then her glance fell to his bandaged hand, and an
inquiry rushed to her lips. But she checked the words in time and drew
slowly aloof to a seat near the rail.

Tisdale took a place near the reclining chair of his host. When she
ventured to give him a swift side-glance, his mouth set austerely. But the
space between them became electrical. It was as though wireless messages
passed continually between them.

"Look back. See how often I tried to tell you! My courage failed. Believe
in me. I am not the monster you thought."

And always the one response: "The facts are all against you."

Duwamish Head had dropped from sight; Magnolia Bluff fell far astern, and
the _Aquila_ steamed out into the long, broad reach of Puget Sound; but
though the tide had turned, there was still no wind. The late sun touched
the glassy swells with the changing effect of a prism. The prow of the
craft shattered this mirror, and her wake stretched in a ragged and
widening crack. But under the awnings Frederic Morganstein's guests found
it delightfully cool. Only Jimmie Daniels, huddled on a stool in the
glare, outside the lowered curtain that cut him off from the breeze
created by the motion of the yacht, felt uncomfortably warm.

The representative of the _Press_ had arrived on board in time to see
Tisdale come down the pier and had discreetly availed himself of the
secluded place that the financier had previously put to his disposal. He
had heard it told at the newspaper office that Tisdale, whose golden
statements were to furnish his little scoop, Hollis Tisdale of Alaska and
the Geographical Survey, who knew more about the coal situation than any
other man, was also the most silent, baffling sphinx on record when it
came to an interview.

At the moment the _Aquila_ came into the open, the Japanese boy placed a
bowl of punch, with, pleasant clinking of ice, on the wicker table before
Mrs. Feversham, who began to serve it. Like Elizabeth's, the emblems on
her nautical white costume were embroidered in scarlet, and a red silk
handkerchief was knott