It was too early to go to the office--then about 6:45--when Gabrielle Tescheron's coach landed on the New York side of the North River. While coming across the ferry she believed it would be wise to take the opportunity to visit Jim at his apartment in Eighteenth Street, and inform him of the action I had taken in notifying the coroner, and therefore to beware of me, for it was plain that her father had convinced me, although he was unable to restrain and sway me to accept his plan of privacy. Gabrielle had classed me as a dull fellow, not able to see beneath the shallow case of Smith. Little did she imagine that I had laughed at her father and ridiculed his course at my interview with him. She jumped to the conclusion that I had notified the coroner, to make sure of a conviction at any cost, so thoroughly had I been convinced of Jim's guilt by the evidence her father had laid before me, and so high was my sense of honor and duty to the community. This action on my part she assumed would result in the publicity her father dreaded, but eventually would lead to Jim's vindication; she deplored my lack of faith in my companion; she marveled that I, too, should have fallen so easily a prey to the sharpers who were deceiving her hot-headed, obstinate father, whose senses were alert for every word or sign that would smirch, by even so much as a shadow, the man he would overthrow. If it had been possible for Gabrielle Tescheron to understand that I had read her impulsive father's character aright, and that my loyalty to Jim Hosley at the time was as firm as her own, our difficulties would have been greatly simplified. My joke turned its other edge on me and cut me off from her confidence, but not from her good-will, as expressed in the beautiful flowers, in the hope that I might turn from pursuing Jim and become a staunch advocate of his cause, when I realized, as she did and as I surely must, how strong and true he was and how far above the rogues who would smirch him for gain. But it was plain to her that I had been turned against Jim by her father, and had gone far beyond the point her father intended to reach in his attack on Hosley. Jim must be quickly warned not to place any more confidence in me, for I had taken hasty action that would soon involve them all in a criminal investigation, full of unpleasant notoriety even for the innocent. Jim should also be well advised by an able criminal lawyer to protect him against these rogues and intemperate reasoners.