"If anything I have understated them," I replied, "Language is wholly inadequate to describe the constant anxiety I felt till you were actually on board the Madiana. But proceed. If I get on that strain I shall never be able to finish." My account of our shopping, with our subsequent visit to the restaurant, made her remark that I was a close observer. She said there was not a thought in her head that I had not photographed. "Who but a born novelist," she said, "would have deemed it worth while to tell that I objected to having the door of our little dining-room locked?" "It is merely to show the reader another proof of your excessively proper conduct," I replied, "and give him an opportunity to appreciate your true character." "You have mistaken your vocation, after all," she said. "You would make a splendid detective. Not even the smallest thing escapes you. You make me think of a hunter on a trail. A broken twig, a nearly indiscernible print on the moss, a leaf brushed aside, show you where the creature has passed." "The only wild creatures I have ever hunted were 'dears,'" I answered, laughing. "Don't you think such earnestness in the chase deserves its full reward?" "The reward is all very well for the hunter," she said, solemnly, "but for the deer there is only the bullet and the knife." She had cornered me there. Instead of trying to straighten out the muddle I went on with my work. Miss May was plainly affected when I told of the remorse I had felt for my ill-spent life, after reading the note she had left on the typewriting machine at her first visit to my rooms. The concluding paragraph of the tenth chapter, as it now appears, had not been written then. Wednesday we did but one chapter--the eleventh. I noticed that my companion appeared fatigued when it was finished and I refused to let her continue. She was intensely surprised when I identified Miss Howes. I detected a repellant shrug of the shoulders as she realized the kind of woman who had occupied the stateroom with her during her voyage from New York to St. Thomas. She showed great interest when I described my fellow passengers at table, and grew white when I came to the point of the larceny of her earrings. Fearing that I would excite some unpleasant memory I made no comment whatever on the occurrence beyond what was in the MS. she was writing. She wanted very much to continue her work, but I would not listen. She was too evidently ill. There is a limit to what even the best natured amanuensis can perform with impunity.