We had just come out of the Oakland Creek channel and the mist suddenly thinned before us. It left the bay and the city fair and wholesome in the gray light, as though the storm had washed the grime and foulness from air and earth and renewed the freshness of life. The clear outline of the hills was scarcely broken by smoke. The ever-changing beauties of the most beautiful of bays took on the faint suggestion of a livelier tint, the herald of the coming sun. We had come but a few hundred yards into the clear air when out of the mist bank behind us shot another tug, the smoke streaming from the funnel, the steam puffing noisily from the escapes and the engine straining to increase the speed. At the exclamation that broke from us, our captain for the first time showed interest in the speed of his boat, and whistled angrily down to his engineer. “We can beat _her_” he said, with a contemptuous accent on the “her.” “That's your business,” I returned, and walked aft to where Mrs. Knapp was standing, half-way up the steps from the cabin. “There is Darby Meeker,” I said, getting sight of him on the pursuing tug. “Can they catch us?” inquired Mrs. Knapp, the lines tightening about her mouth. “I think not--the captain says not. I should say that we were holding our own now.” At this moment a tall, massive figure stepped from the pilot-house of the pursuing tug and shook its fists at us. At the sight of the man my heart stood still. The huge bulk, the wolf-face, just distinguishable, distorted, dark with rage and passion, stopped the blood, and I felt a faintness as of dropping from a height. With a gasp, life and voice came back to me. “Doddridge Knapp!” I cried. Mrs. Knapp looked at me in alarm, and grasped the rail. “No! no!” she exclaimed. “A thousand times no! That is Elijah Lane!” I gazed at her in wonder. Not Doddridge Knapp! Had my eyes played me false? “Do you not understand?” she said in a low, intense tone. “He is Elijah Lane, the father of the boy. An evil, wicked man--mad--truly mad. He would kill the boy. He killed the mother of the boy. I know, but it is not a case for proof--not a case that the law can touch. And he hates the boy--and me!” I began to grasp the truth, and recovered speech. “But why does he want to kill him? And would not the law punish the crime?” “You do not understand. The boy inherits a great fortune from his mother. Mr. Knapp and I are left trustees by the mother's will. If he had control of the boy, the boy would die; but it would be from cruelty, disease, neglect. It would not be murder in the eye of the law. But I know what would happen. Oh, see the wretch! How he hates me!”