“What brings you out in this storm?” I asked, completely mystified. “I thought I was to meet another person.” “Indeed?” said Mrs. Knapp with a spark of animation. “Well, I am the other person.” I was paralyzed in mind and nerve for a moment with the astonishment of the disclosure. Even yet I could not believe. “You!” I exclaimed at last. “Are you the protector of the boy? The employer--” Then I stopped, the tangle in my mind beginning to straighten out. “I am she,” said Mrs. Knapp gently. “Then,” I cried, “who is he? what is he? what is the whole dreadful affair about? and what--” Mrs. Knapp interrupted me. “First tell me what has become of Henry Wilton?” she said with sorrow in her voice. The dreadful scene in the alley flashed before my mind. “He is dead.” “Dead! And how?” “Murdered.” “I feared so--I was certain, or he would have let me know. You have much to tell me. But first, did he leave no papers in your hands?” I brought out the slip that bore the blind diagram and the blinder description that accompanied it. Nothing could be made of it in the darkness, so I described it as well as I could. “We are on the right track,” said Mrs. Knapp. “Oh, why didn't I have that yesterday? But here--we are at the wharf.” The hack had stopped, and a hand was fumbling at the door. The darkness, the dash of water, the wind whistling about the crazy wooden buildings and through the rigging of ships, made the water-front vocal with the shouting of the storm demons as we alighted. My guide was before us, and we followed him down the pier, struggling against the gusts. “Do we cross the bay?” I asked, as Mrs. Knapp clung to my arm. “It's not safe for you in a small boat.” “There's a tug waiting for us,” Mrs. Knapp explained. A moment later we saw its lights, and the fire of its engine-room shot a cheerful glow into the storm. The little vessel swung uneasily at its berth as we made our way aboard, and with shouts of men and clang of bells it was soon tossing on the dark waters of the bay. Out from the shelter of the wharves the wind buffeted us wildly, and the black waves were threshed into phosphorescent foam against the sides of the tug, while their crests, self-luminous, stretched away in changing lines of faint, ghostly fire. The cabin of the tug was fitted with a shelf table, and over it swung a lamp of brass that gave a dim light to the little room. Mrs. Knapp seated herself here, as the boat pitched and tossed and trembled at the strokes of the waves and quivered to the throbbing of the screw, spread out the paper I had given her, and studied the diagram and the jumble of letters with anxious attention. “It is the same,” she said at last; “in part, at least.” “The same as what?” I asked. “As the one I got word of to-night, you know,” she replied. “No--I didn't know.”