"I wish you would write me a line or two while I am gone," I said. "If you send to St. Thomas by the 18th, I ought to get it before I leave there. The mails are fearfully slow in that part of the world, but they do arrive eventually. I will let you know how I am getting on, if you wish it, besides what I send to Tom. I'm not going to let you quarrel with me any longer." She said without much enthusiasm that she would be glad to have me write, and that perhaps she would do so herself. I did not care to press the matter, thinking it best to leave it that way. On the morning of the 12th I went early to the steamer, inspected the cabins I had engaged and made arrangements with the head porter to reserve a good place for my steamer chairs on the after-deck. I was rather pleased with the accommodations, for I had not expected too much. Driving back up-town I secured my letter of credit and did a last bit of shopping. An hour before the time the vessel was to slip her moorings I was again on board, not wishing Miss May to arrive and find me absent. As the passengers arrived, one after another, I looked into their faces to see if there was a familiar one, but there was none, until Mr. Wesson came. I exchanged a few words with him about the arrangement of things in the room we were to occupy jointly. When he left, my attention was attracted to a woman, just coming up the plank, whom I certainly had seen before. An elderly man walked just behind her, and as she turned to speak to him I judged they were together. It was some time before I remembered where I had seen that face, and when it flashed upon me I could not restrain a low whistle. She was the woman who had advertised in the Herald "Personal" column that she desired the acquaintance of an "elderly gent," describing herself as "beautiful of face and form," with her "object matrimony." Well, she seemed to have found what she sought and I hoped the "gent" was also not disappointed. I did not believe that the ceremony of marriage had been performed between them, but perhaps a temporary arrangement was equally pleasing to both. One of the stewards took their hand baggage and descended with it, showing them to their rooms. Miss May, arrived finally. I did not recognize her at first, heavily veiled as she was, though happily without the blue article she had worn to the restaurant. I rose and escorted her to her cabin, where she seated herself on the sofa and tried to recover her breath, which I could not see she had any reason to lose. As soon as she could speak she asked which was my room; when I told her, she begged me to wait there a few minutes. Rather distressed by her manner I could, nevertheless, do nothing but comply. After what seemed an endless time I heard her voice, speaking my name in low tones, and went to see what she wanted.