CHAPTER IX

"Our sister is very ill and asks for you. Come if you would see her alive.

"Charles Séguin."

CHAPTER IX

CHECKMATE

"It is evident that this affair was not lightly arranged," said M. Delcassé, and ran his fingers nervously through his hair.

The two sat together in Delcassé's room, and Lépine had just finished his report. Evening was falling, and the room was growing dark, but neither desired a light.

"Everything has been thought of and provided for," said the Prefect, at last, "even to the telegram which gave an excuse for this man's abrupt departure. Perhaps the other telegrams were also intended to mislead us—just as they did mislead me—to convince us that those other men were only ordinary travellers. They must have foreseen that the police would investigate the presence of every stranger in Toulon. It was careless to send both telegrams from Brussels, but a coincidence so small might easily be overlooked. On one point only was there an oversight—they did not foresee that we might trace them by means of the money. There is our hope. Sooner or later, the man with the white hair will spend another of his hundred-franc notes. There is a certain justice in it," he added, "that he should be betrayed by his blood-money."

"Yes, blood-money!" cried Delcassé. "That is the word for it! Oh, that I had my hands on the monster—for he is a monster, Lépine; he must be a monster! There he sat, in cold blood, and loosed the power that killed three hundred men! Have you considered, Lépine, that the finding of this second installation furnishes, as Crochard foresaw, proof of his theory?"

"But it is absurd," he cried, "it is incredible that here, under our very noses, such things should take place! What are our police for, Lépine—our secret service?"

"Of him an example shall be made. But that does not help us. This man must not escape! Think what it may mean for France if he escapes!"

"Go to him, then, and say I wish to see him. We must lay these discoveries before him—though no doubt he has already made them for himself. Tell him he must not desert us—that without him, we are lost!"

Lépine was grateful for the darkness, for his cheeks were red with humiliation. But, after all, M. Delcassé was right. He rose with a sigh.

"Understand well, Lépine," said the Minister, more gently, "it is not you I blame. You have done all that is possible with the means at your command. But we cannot afford to fail. In an affair of this kind, the public is not reasonable. Should we fail, and should our failure become known, as it almost surely would, the ministry might find itself swept away before the storm. So we must find Crochard."

The Café des Voyageurs was crowded when he reached it, and he had some difficulty in finding a seat. The marines who had been searching the wreck had, at last, been released from duty, and had, with one accord, hastened ashore to refresh themselves at the expense of a populace eager to listen to every detail. The café hummed with talk; weird and revolting stories of the search were told with gusto; the completeness of the destruction was described; the survivors dwelt upon their sensations at the moment of the explosion; the heroism of the rescuers was not forgotten; but, and Lépine noted this with a little sigh of relief, nowhere was there an intimation that the disaster was other than an accident.

He sat there for half an hour, listening to all this, and then, as Crochard made no sign, he summoned the head-waiter and requested a word with the proprietor. With a nod, as of one who expected the request, the man turned and again led the way to the door at the rear of the room.

A single candle burned on the table in the centre of the little room, and beyond it sat a man. At the first glance, in the semi-darkness, Lépine fancied it was Crochard; then he saw that this man was slighter, that his face was bloodless, and that he was staring with hunted eyes.

"Yes, sir," answered Samson. "I was expecting you. But I did not think you would recognise me so readily."

"I have a good memory," he said. "Crochard told you, perhaps, that I might come?"

He handed Lépine a note. The latter broke the seal, held it to the light and read it carefully:

"My dear M. Lépine:

"I have found it necessary to leave Toulon, in the pursuit of a certain business, whose nature you can guess. I hope soon to have good news for M. Delcassé and yourself. Meanwhile, I would remind you of our agreement as to my friends. Samson is one of them. He has already been of some service in this affair, and may be of more. We can discuss his future upon my return. I will answer for him.

"Crochard, L'Invincible!"

"He gave me the note at four o'clock yesterday afternoon, sir, and stated that he was about to depart. I have not seen him since."

"There is one thing that perhaps you can tell me, Samson," he said. "Previous to his departure, did he visit the house at 80 Rue du Plasson?"

"I think it very probable," answered Samson, after a moment's hesitation. "I myself furnished M. Crochard with that address, when he returned to the café yesterday for his lunch."

"You have indeed changed, Samson," he said, at last. "I suppose it was Crochard who arranged your escape?"

"You know, of course, that it is my duty to denounce you as an escaped criminal?"

"Crochard tells me that he will answer for you—in other words, he guarantees that you will not run away. Do you understand that?"

"Do not fear," said Samson, huskily. "Monsieur will always find me here when he requires me."

"Very well," he said; "I shall do nothing for the present," and he left the café.

It was nearly eight o'clock, and, feeling the need of dinner, Lépine made his way back to his hotel; but his hunger was destined to go unsatisfied, for, as he stepped through the door, Pigot touched him on the arm.

"M. Delcassé wishes to see you at once," he said, and Lépine, with one regretful glance in the direction of the dining-room, hurried up the stairs to the Minister's apartment. He found him dictating to his secretary, a great pile of letters before him.

Without pausing in his dictation, Delcassé picked up a telegram which lay at his elbow, and handed it to Lépine. It was dated from Paris, and had been filed but an hour before. It read:

"Seven notes one hundred francs B162810R to B162816R deposited to-day by Thomas Cook & Son.

Linné, Governor Bank of France."

"Is no doubt already there," and he handed Delcassé the note which Samson had given him.

Delcassé read it, and looked up with an amused smile, in which there lurked a trace of malice.

"What a man!" he said. "Nevertheless, Lépine, I think you would better go. You may be able to assist him! Give him my compliments, and keep me informed," and he turned back to his secretary.

The Paris office of the Messrs. Cook is at the corner opposite the Opera House, and here, about ten o'clock on the morning of Thursday, September 28, a little grey-bearded man descended from a fiacre, entered, and, after a short delay, was admitted to the presence of the manager, who made it clear at once that he was entirely at the service of his distinguished visitor.

Lépine sat down and produced from his pocket seven notes of the Bank of France, for one hundred francs each. They were quite new and had not even been folded.

"These notes were deposited by you yesterday afternoon," he said. "I should like to know from whom they were received."

"That will not be difficult, sir," he said. "Our cashier can no doubt tell us from which of our clerks he received them. Excuse me a moment."

He hurried from the room with the notes in his hand, and Lépine, strolling to the window, relapsed into his favourite amusement. At no other corner in the city could it be practised so profitably, for here, at the meeting of the Boulevards, all Paris, sooner or later, passed; and not Paris only, but vagrants from every nation. So Lépine watched the crowd intently, his bright eyes skipping from face to face—a mere glance at one, a longer glance at another, a close stare at a third. Perhaps, at the back of his mind, there was the hope that some incredible good-fortune might send past this corner a shrunken, white-haired man, leaning on the arm of his dark-haired daughter....

The opening of the door behind him broke into his thoughts, and he turned to find that the manager had brought another man back with him.

"This is the clerk who received the money," said the manager, and returned the seven notes to the detective.

"It was Tuesday afternoon, sir," the clerk began, "about four o'clock, I should say, that a man came to the counter and stated that he desired a stateroom, with two berths, second-class, for the Prinzsessin Ottilie, the sailing of yesterday."

"A thin man, past middle-age. His hair was quite grey and he was of a dark complexion, with very bright eyes."

"I was in some doubt as to whether such a stateroom was available, as this is the busy season; but on reference to our list, I found that there was such a stateroom. A customer to whom we had sold it had just called at the office, saying that he would not be able to sail, and leaving his tickets with us to resell, if possible. When I told the man of this, he seemed very pleased, took the tickets, and gave me the seven hundred-franc notes. My attention was called to them because they were quite new and unfolded. He took them from a long envelope which he carried in an inner pocket, and which seemed to contain a large sum of money."

"It was this one, sir," he said, and placed his finger on 514; "an inner room, you see, on the upper deck."

Lépine took the blank and looked it over. It stated that stateroom No. 514, on the Prinzsessin Ottilie, for the sailing of September 27, two berths, second-class, had been purchased of Thomas Cook & Son by Ignace Vard, of New York City, the berths to be used by himself and his daughter; and that he had paid for these berths the sum of six hundred and forty francs, being payment in full, the receipt of which was acknowledged. The blank also stated that Mr. Vard was a naturalised citizen of the United States, and had lived in that country for ten years.

"The sailing was from Cherbourg?" Lépine inquired, when he had assimilated all this.

"How did it happen, sir," Lépine asked, turning to the manager, "that the notes were not deposited until yesterday?"

"Our deposit is made up at three o'clock each afternoon," the manager explained. "The notes came in too late for Tuesday's deposit, and were placed in our safe until the next day."

"I thank you very much, gentlemen," he said. "You have been most obliging. The information you have given me will be of the very greatest service."

And with that he took his leave, returned light-heartedly to his office and sent a wireless to the captain of the Ottilie. The fugitive could not escape him now; it was merely a question of arresting him as he left the boat at New York; soon, soon, Lépine would have the pleasure of putting him on the grill, and, once there, the detective felt sure that there would be some important revelations before he got off again. One fact surprised him—that Vard should be an American citizen; but perhaps that was not the truth. If it was the truth, it would make the arrest at New York a little awkward; a formal complaint would have to be made, a charge of some kind trumped up. But there was no hurry—a week remained in which to mature the plans.

So Lépine, after sending a brief report in cipher to M. Delcassé, turned to the work which had accumulated during his absence in a happier and more contented frame of mind than he had enjoyed for some days.

"I shall relish my lunch to-day!" he reflected; but, alas! it was just as he was preparing to sally forth for it that the blow fell.

"A message for you, sir," his secretary said, and handed him a light-blue envelope.

"Ah!" said Lépine, "a wireless!" and he ripped it open eagerly. Then he remained staring at it with astounded eyes. Here is the message:

"Prinzsessin Ottilie, September 28, 11:10 A. M. Radio via Cherbourg.

"Lépine, Paris.

"No record of Ignace Vard and daughter on Ottilie. Stateroom 514 unoccupied.

"Hausmann, Captain."

CHAPTER X

THE LAND OF FREEDOM

The old town of Cherbourg was experiencing its semi-weekly apotheosis. For five days of the seven a duller place would be difficult to find, but on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when the great trans-Atlantic liners were due to pause in the outer harbour and take aboard the multitudes homeward-bound to America, the town was transfigured. The transfiguration, indeed, began on the previous evenings, for it was then that the less-knowing and more timid of the tourists began to arrive.

The knowing ones, having once tasted the Lethe of Cherbourg, remained in Paris until the last minute, and stepped from the boat-train to the waiting tender. But the less well-informed came on the day before—and never, for the remainder of their lives, forgot the dulness of their last day in Europe. Then there were the nervously-anxious, their peace of mind already wrecked by the vagaries of the European baggage-system, who dared not run the risk of arriving at the last moment. So they, too, journeyed to Cherbourg the day before the sailing-date, in order to have a clear twenty-four hours in which to search for the pieces which were certain to be missing. That day at Cherbourg was always an expensive one, for the hotel-keepers of the place, having to live for seven days on the proceeds of two, arranged their rates accordingly.

At the edge of the narrow strip of rock-strewn sand which constitutes the beach at Cherbourg, stands the Grand Hotel—familiar name to every traveller in Europe, where even the smallest hamlet has its "Grand." The one at Cherbourg is a rambling, three-storied frame structure, with a glass-enclosed dining-room overlooking the harbour, and here, at ten o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, the twenty-seventh of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eleven, Daniel Webster was disconsolately eating that frugal meal which is the French for breakfast. Not the great Daniel—all well-informed persons are, of course, aware that he passed to his reward some sixty years ago—but a well-built, fresh-faced, rather good-looking young fellow, still on the right side of thirty, who had most inadvisedly chosen to appear in this world of trouble on the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of the great Daniel, and who had forthwith been handicapped with his name.

John Webster, an honest farmer of the Connecticut valley, had always been a worshipper at the shrine of the eloquent New Englander, to whom he fancied himself related, and when, having taken to himself a wife, that wife presented him with a son on the very day when the centenary of his hero's birth was being celebrated, the coincidence appeared to him too momentous to be disregarded, and the boy was christened Daniel.

It was a thing no thoughtful father would have done, and as Dan grew older, he resented his name bitterly. It was the subject of brutal jests from his playmates, resulting in numberless pitched battles, and of still more brutal hazing when he pursued his predestined way through the portals of the university at New Haven. Here he was promptly rechristened Ichabod, and his real name was gradually forgotten.

In the depths of his heart, John Webster may perhaps have hoped that this was to be a real reincarnation. If so, he was doomed to disappointment, for the younger Daniel gave no promise of being either a statesman or an orator. But he took to ink as a duck to water, was never so happy as when his pen was spoiling good white paper, was elected editor of the News, and, commencement over, took the first train for New York, stormed the office of the Record, for which he had acted as college correspondent, and demanded a job.

He got it; and began anew the task of living down his name. Always, when introduced or introducing himself, he saw in the eyes opposite his own that maddening glimmer of amusement. Then he gritted his teeth and waited for the joke. There were fourteen possible forms that it might take. Tempted often to return to that rocky Connecticut hillside, he nevertheless stuck it out, and, as time passed, found he didn't mind so much. He even reached the point where he made bets with himself as to which of the fourteen it would be. And he progressed in other ways: the material symbol of the progress being that, instead of cub reporter at twelve dollars a week, he was now one of the trusted members of the staff at six times that salary.

Also he was seven years older, and this had been his first long vacation—six weeks in England, Belgium, Holland and France—glorious weeks; but his eyes were aching for the lights of Broadway and his fingers itching for the pencil. The most exacting and bewitching of all professions was clamouring for him again.

Having disposed of the rolls and coffee, he rose reluctantly, stepped out upon the beach, and filled and lighted his pipe—with a grimace at the first puff, for French tobacco is the worst in the world, outside of Germany. Before him lay the mighty breakwater which guards the harbour, with its lighthouse in the middle and its fort at either end, while to his left were the great naval basins, hewn from the solid rock. To the right, below the high sea-wall, the narrow beach stretched away, empty and uninviting.

Dan felt depressed. Cherbourg, evidently, was not an exciting place. He had never seen an uglier beach, but, after a moment's hesitation, he started off along it. Perhaps, farther on, it might improve.

The tide was going out, and in the little basins in the sand minute crabs and strange sea-midgets scuttled about panic-stricken at finding themselves marooned; here and there a stranded jelly-fish glowed like an iridescent soap-bubble, and, farther out, an ugly mud flat began to be revealed by the retreating water. Some distance ahead, a ridge of tumbled rocks ran from the sea-wall down into the water, and, as he drew nearer, he saw that on one of the rocks a girl was sitting.

He glanced at her as he passed, and would have liked to glance again, for he had never met more arresting eyes, but he was going on with face rigidly to the front, when her voice startled him.

"Pardon, monsieur," she said. It was a contralto voice, of a quality that made his pulses leap.

He stopped short and turned toward her, incredulous that it could be he to whom she had spoken. But there was no one else in sight; and then he saw that her hands were gripped tightly in her lap and that her lips were quivering.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, and took a step toward her. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Oh!" she cried, her face lighting, and a wave of colour sweeping into her cheeks. "Then you are an American!"

"So say I!" she echoed. "For myself, I mean. I also am an American. We will speak English, then."

"I should much prefer it," he smiled. "My French is wholly academic—and covered with moss, at that. It doesn't even enable me to get my eggs turned!"

She looked at him, the colour deepening in her cheeks. Dan, looking back, decided that he had never seen such eyes; he could scarcely believe that she was an American. She did not look in the least like one. But she was speaking rapidly.

"I am in trouble," she said, "as the result of my own carelessness. I was crossing these rocks, without watching sufficiently where I was going, and my foot slipped. See," and she swept aside her skirts. "I cannot get it out."

"I think not; or at most only a little strained. But it is wedged between these big rocks, and I cannot move it."

Dan touched the foot, and found that it was, indeed, wedged fast. Then he examined the rocks, and finally, bending above the smaller one, placed his arms firmly about it, braced his feet and lifted. It would have been worth while to have seen the play of his back and shoulder muscles as the strain tightened, but it was over in a moment. For the rock rose slowly, slowly, and the foot was free. He let the rock drop softly back, stood up and brushed the sand from his sleeves. The girl bent and rubbed her ankle.

"I think so," and she took an experimental step or two. "Yes; not even sprained. That reminded me of Porthos," she added, looking up at him, her eyes very bright.

"Porthos would have done it with one hand," he said, "while saluting you with the other."

She hesitated a little, looking along the beach; and he, guessing her thought, raised his cap and started to walk on. But again her voice stopped him. Perhaps she, too, was something of a mind-reader.

"I owe you some thanks, you know," she said. "You mustn't go off till I've paid them!"

"Not thanks!" he protested. "But if you would take pity on a lonely exile and talk to him a little, you'd certainly be doing a noble action!"

"Is it as bad as all that?" and Dan noticed how the corners of her eyes crinkled when she smiled.

"You can't imagine how lonely I've been!" he said. "Especially the past few days. I didn't feel it so much till I was starting home. America!" and he took off his hat.

"Do you feel it that way, too?" he asked eagerly. "I've never been much of a patriot—just took things as a matter of course, I guess; but six weeks in Europe is enough to make a patriot of any American. Whenever I see the old flag, I feel like going down on my knees and kissing it. I've just begun to realise what it stands for!"

She had turned back toward the hotel, walking slowly with Dan beside her, and her face was beaming as she looked up at him.

"You are right—oh, so right!" she cried. "And how much more would you realise it if, like me, you had been born in another country and felt for yourself the injustice, the oppression, of which you have seen only a little! For such as I, America is indeed the Promised Land!"

The words were uttered with a tragic emphasis which left him speechless. He could think of nothing to say that was not banal or superficial, and he realised that here were deep waters! He glanced once or twice at her face, which had grown suddenly dark and brooding; then, with a little motion of her hands, she seemed to push her thoughts away.

"You do not know much of Polish history, perhaps," she said, in a lighter tone. "But if you are fond of tales of heroism, you should read it, for it is one long heroism. It will help you to realise more fully what your flag stands for. It is my flag, too; I have lived in America nearly ten years; and never do I grow so angry as when I hear an American speak slightingly of his country. Here is the hotel. Forgive me for talking like this; but it has done me good to meet you!"

She held out her hand and gave his a frank little pressure. Then she turned and left him.

He watched until the door swung shut behind her; then he walked on slowly, past the great basins, over the drawbridge, along the crooked streets of the old town, past the station, and finally he stopped in the shadow of a crag of rock which sprang abruptly three hundred feet into the air. Its summit was crowned by the frowning walls of the great fort which commands the harbour, and along the face of the cliff, blue with heather, a narrow footpath wound deviously upward. He ascended this for a little way, and then stopped, his elbows on the wall which guarded it. Before him stretched the bay, shielded by its jetty, and beyond rolled the white-capped ocean. That way lay America.

"The land of freedom!" he murmured, and his eyes were bright. "The land of freedom!"

CHAPTER XI

SHIPMATES

When Dan got back to the hotel for lunch, he found that there had been many arrivals during the morning. The Adriatic was to sail that afternoon, as well as the Ottilie, and the long dining-room at the hotel was a busy place. As the head-waiter led him to a seat, he caught a glimpse, far off, of the girl of the morning. She was sitting at a table with a white-haired man—her father, of course—with whom she was talking earnestly. She did not look up, and, in another instant, Dan's guide had pulled out a chair, and he found himself sitting with his back toward the only person in the room who interested him.

He told himself this deliberately, after a glance at his neighbours; and then, in the next moment, he called himself a cad, for every human-being is interesting, once you get below the skin. But degrees of interest vary, and Dan felt that he had never met any one who promised so much as this outspoken girl, with the shining eyes and sensitive mouth. Which boat was she sailing by, he wondered? It was an even chance that, like himself, she would be on the Ottilie. Yes—but second class? That would be asking too much of Fortune! Let it be added here that Dan was returning in the second-cabin not because—as he was to hear so many times on that voyage!—there was no room in the first, but because by doing so, he had saved the money for an extra week of travel.

He found more arrivals in the office when he left the table, and a formidable array of baggage, which was presently loaded on vans and trundled away toward the waiting tender. He paid his bill, collected the two suit-cases which constituted his total impedimenta, saw them safely off for the pier, tipped the porter, and left the hotel. The whistle of the tender was blowing shrilly, and, when he reached the pier, he saw far out at sea the smudge of smoke against the sky, which told that one of the steamers was approaching. He boarded the tender, assured a medical inspector that he was an American citizen and so did not need to have his eyes examined, dug his suit-cases out of the pile of luggage, and found himself a seat near the bow of the boat. Presently the special boat-train rolled in along the pier and disgorged the final quota of passengers.

Ten minutes later, with a shrill toot, the tender backed away and headed out across the harbour. With a queer feeling, half of sorrow, half of joy, Dan looked back at the receding shore, telling himself that the next soil his feet touched would be that of America.

A mile out, the great liner lay waiting, impressively huge as seen from the deck of the little tender, and presently they were alongside and filing through an open port. A steward grabbed his suit-cases, the instant he was on board, asked the number of his room, led him to it along interminable passages, and left him to make himself at home.

There were two berths in it, and, as he had paid for only one of them, he knew that, at this crowded season, he could scarcely hope to have the whole room to himself. But there was as yet no sign of any other occupant, so Dan, thrusting his bags under the lower berth, went on deck again. The last of the baggage and mail was being lifted aboard by a block and tackle, worked by a donkey engine, and, even as Dan looked, the tender tooted its whistle, cast loose, and backed away, and suddenly beneath his feet Dan felt the quiver which told that the screws had started. Slowly the great ship swung around and headed away into the west toward the setting sun—and toward "the land of freedom." How that phrase was running in his head!

He made a little tour of that portion of the boat set aside for passengers of the second class, and realised that the frugal Germans were much less generous in their provision for those humble ones than was the English line on which he had come to Europe. There the second class was well amidships, with a deck-room almost equal to that given the aristocrats at the bow. Here the second class was at the very stern, and the deck-room was limited indeed. Of course, Dan told himself, the Ottilie was a crack boat, designed to cater to the most exclusive trade; but he looked forward at the long stretches set apart for the first cabin with a little envy.

The boat was crowded, but he saw nothing of the black-haired girl, and finally, after finding that there was no hope of getting a deck-chair, he sought the dining-room steward, got his table-ticket, and made his way back to his stateroom. But on the threshold he paused. A man was lying in the upper berth, the light at his head turned on and a paper in his hand. He raised his head and looked down, at the sound of the door, and Dan had the impression of a bronzed countenance lighted by a pair of very brilliant eyes.

"Ah," said a pleasant voice, "so this is my shipmate," and the stranger swung his legs over the side of the berth and dropped lightly to the floor. Again Dan had the impression of the bright eyes upon him.

"It looks that way," he said. And then a sudden compunction seized him. "I didn't mean to be a pig and take the lower berth. You are quite welcome to it."

"Oh, no, no," protested the other. "The choice is always to the first comer. That is the rule of the sea."

Dan noticed that, though he spoke English well, it was with the clipped accent which betrayed the Frenchman.

"I can but thank you," he said. "After all, you are younger than I. My name is André Chevrial, very much at your service," and he held out his hand.

If he had announced himself to be a prince of the blood, Dan would not have been surprised, for there was that in his bearing which bespoke the finished gentleman, and a magnetism in his manner to which Dan was already yielding.

"Mine is Webster—Dan Webster," he said, and took the outstretched hand warmly.

"My father made the mistake of naming me after the great Daniel—a hundred years after," he explained.

"Though it did not need that to tell me you are an American. You of America have an atmosphere all your own. Shall we go on deck and have a cigarette?"

So presently Dan found himself seated beside M. Chevrial, talking very comfortably. The Frenchman, to Dan's surprise, proclaimed himself to be nothing more important than a wine-jobber who visited America every autumn to dispose of his wares; but, whatever his business, he was certainly a most entertaining companion. And then, suddenly, Dan quite forgot him, for coming toward them down the deck was the dark-eyed girl, arm in arm with a man whose burning eyes strangely belied his snowy hair. Dan sat staring at them, scarcely able to credit such stupendous good fortune, and, as they passed, the girl looked at him, smiled and nodded.

M. Chevrial, whom no detail of this little scene had escaped, lighted another cigarette.

"A very striking-looking young lady," he said. "The gentleman, I take it, is her father?"

"Yes, I think so," said Dan. "I met her for a moment on the beach at Cherbourg this morning, and she mentioned that she was with her father."

"Ah!" commented Chevrial. "And now tell me more about this journalism of yours, of which we hear so much. Is it really free? Is it not true that most of your papers are controlled by wealthy syndicates, who use them for their own purposes?"

This was a red flag to the bull, and Dan plunged into a defence of American journalism, citing instances and proofs, telling of incidents in his own experience showing that most editors really have consciences by which they are guided, and a high conception of their duty to the public.

"There are exceptions, of course," Dan went on, carried away by his subject; "there are scoundrels in the newspaper business, just as in all businesses; but it is one of the beautiful laws of compensation that, just as soon as a newspaper goes wrong, its influence begins to slip away from it...."

He stopped suddenly, for he had glanced at M. Chevrial and found him inattentive. His head was turned a little aside and his eyes were fixed with a peculiar and intent expression on two men who stood together by the rail, a little distance away. One of them was the man with the white hair. The other was evidently a tourist, from his costume, and though he was clean-shaven, some instinct caused Dan to classify him as a German. He glanced back at Chevrial at last, but the latter was gazing dreamily out over the water and stifling a little yawn with his hand.

"Your pardon, M. Webster," he said. "But I arose very early this morning, in order to catch my train, and I am tired. I think that I shall lie down for a few moments before dinner. Au revoir."

Dan sat on by himself for a little while; then it suddenly occurred to him that, if he looked about, he might find the dark-eyed girl alone somewhere. He leaped to his feet and began the search. She was not on the promenade deck, nor in the library, and he had about decided that she had returned to her stateroom, when it occurred to him that she might be on the boat-deck. So he climbed the narrow stair and emerged upon that lofty eyrie. No, she could not be here—it was too windy; then, as he glanced around, he saw, through the deepening twilight, a dark figure sitting on a bench in the lee of one of the boats.

Could it be she? He hesitated to approach near enough to be sure; but at last he mustered up courage to stroll past. And then, in an instant, his cap was off and his hand extended.

"I can't tell you how glad I am that you are on the boat!" he began. "May I sit down?"

"Certainly," and she moved a little, looking up at him, smiling. "I am glad, too."

"Are you? It's nice of you to say so, anyway. A voyage is so dull if there is no one to talk to. Of course, there is always some one to talk to—but I don't mean that kind of talk. I mean plumbing the depths—you know, that sort of thing."

"You certainly plumbed mine this morning. Not that I have any great depths," he added, laughing; "but your line touched bottom, and gave me a new feeling which I think was good for me. Now, since we're going to know each other, I want to introduce myself. My name is Webster—named after the great Daniel, but called Dan so that future historians can distinguish between us—and I earn a precarious living by chasing news for a New York paper."

"And my name," she responded instantly, "is Kasia Vard; and I have earned a precarious living in many ways—I have worked in a factory, I have sold papers—I have even cleaned the streets."

"Oh, that was not in America," she said. "It was at Warsaw. In Poland, just as in many other countries of Europe, the streets are cleaned by the women and children. The men, you see, are needed for the army."

"I have seen women and children working in the fields; in Holland I saw them helping tow the boats and working in the brickyards. That was bad enough. But I never have seen them cleaning the streets."

"You would have seen them doing it there—as they do it all over Germany. Had you gone to Chemnitz, you would have seen them carrying the hod."

She fell silent, and Dan leaned back, strangely moved. How young he was; how little he knew! Here was this girl, certainly not more than twenty, who had lived more, felt more, thought more than he had ever done; who had ideals....

"Miss Vard," he said finally, in a low voice, "permit me to tell you something. I am just an average fellow with an average brain, who has gone about all his life with his eyes only half open—sometimes not even that. I have walked up and down Broadway, and fancied I was seeing life! I must seem awfully young to you—I feel a mere infant—intellectually, I mean. But I want to grow up—it isn't good for a man of twenty-nine to be a mental Peter Pan. Will you help me?"

She smiled, the bright, sudden smile, which he had grown to like so much, and impulsively she held out her hand.

"Yes," she said, "I will help, as far as I can. The best thing I can do for you is to introduce you to my father. He can help far more than I!"

"Thank you!" and he took her hand and held it. "It was your father I saw you with?"

"Yes. You will like him. He is the most wonderful man in the world. Now I must be going. He will be looking for me."

He went with her to the lower deck, then returned to the bench, and stared thoughtfully out over the dark sea. What a woman she was! And then he smiled a little as he recalled her last words, "The most wonderful man in the world!" He did not suspect that the time would come when he would echo them!