"Why should I? He despises me,--or he would have answered that letter. I--I dragged my heart before him," she sobbed. Mr. Pollin let go her hands, and slipped one arm around her shoulders. "My dear little girl," he replied, "letters have been known to go astray,--just as conclusions have." He patted her bowed head with his free hand. "Why, once I lost a letter with a money order in it," he added, seriously. Molly brushed away her tears. "I must go now," she said, moving away from him. She put up her hands to straighten her hair. Then a sudden thought occurred to her, and she plucked Mr. Pollin's sleeve. "Uncle, we must both forget about to-day," she said. "Not I," he replied. "I am going to write--" He stopped short, spellbound by her sudden change of countenance and manner. Her eyes fairly flamed. Her whole body trembled. "You would not dare!" she cried. "Oh, you would not dare! Are you, too, nothing but a busybody?" Poor old Pollin gasped. "Good Lord! I meant it for the best," he exclaimed, weakly, "but just as you say, my dear." He took her home, and, by the time her door was reached, her manner toward him had again warmed. "It was a charming lunch," she said, as they shook hands. Mr. Pollin sat at his writing-table, and dipped his pen in the ink, only to dot lines on his blotter. "The girl was right," he said, "I don't dare." He lit a cigarette, and for several minutes contemplated wreaths of smoke, without moving. Suddenly he leaned forward, took a fresh dip of ink, and scribbled: "DEAR BERT:--You are a fool to stay away,--unless, perhaps, you no longer care for the girl." Without adding his signature to this offhand communication, he enclosed it in an envelope, and addressed the same to Hemming, care of his New York publishers. CHAPTER VII. HEMMING RECEIVES HIS SAILING ORDERS FROM A MASTER NOT TO BE DENIED Stanley was taken to a private lunatic asylum, and, for all we know to the contrary, his seafaring friend went along with him. Hemming and Tarmont looked through his papers, and found that his father was living (and living well, too) in Toronto, Canada. He was a judge of the Supreme Court, no less. They wrote to this personage, stating the crazy man's case, and in reply received a letter containing a request to enter the patient at a private asylum, and a substantial check. The judge wrote that he had not seen or heard from his son for seven years, and, though he had always been willing to supply him with money, had been unable to discover his address. He arrived in New York soon after his letter,--a big, kindly man with white hair and red cheeks, and a month later took his son home with him. That was the last Hemming saw or heard of Stanley,--of the man to whom he owed more than he had knowledge of.