She kept her face averted from him. There was land in sight, and she seemed much interested in it. "What are you going to do in America?" Mr. Sabin looked out across the sea, and he repeated her question to himself. What was he going to do in this great, strange land, whose ways were not his ways, and whose sympathies lay so far apart from his? "I cannot tell," he murmured. "I have come here for safety. I have no country nor any friends. This is the land of my exile." A soft, white hand touched his for a moment. He looked into her face, and saw there an emotion which surprised him. "It is my exile too," she said. "I shall never dare to return. I have no wish to return." "But your friends?" Mr. Sabin commenced. "Your family?" "I have no family." Mr. Sabin was thoughtful for several moments, then he took out his case and lit a cigarette. He watched the blue smoke floating away over the ship's side, and looked no more at the woman at his elbow. "If you decide," he said quietly, "to settle in America, you must not allow yourself to forget that I am very much your debtor. I----" "Your friendship," she interrupted, "I shall be very glad to have. We may perhaps help one another to feel less lonely." Mr. Sabin gently shook his head. "I had a friend of your sex once," he said. "I shall--forgive me--never have another." "Is she dead?" "If she is dead, it is I who have killed her. I sacrificed her to my ambition. We parted, and for months--for years--I scarcely thought of her, and now the day of retribution has come. I think of her, but it is in vain. Great barriers have rolled between us since those days, but she was my first friend, and she will be my only one." There was a long silence. Mr. Sabin's eyes were fixed steadily seawards. A flood of recollections had suddenly taken possession of him. When at last he looked round, the chair by his side was vacant. CHAPTER L A HARBOUR TRAGEDY The voyage of the _Calipha_ came to its usual termination about ten o'clock on the following morning, when she passed Boston lights and steamed slowly down the smooth waters of the harbour. The seven passengers were all upon deck in wonderfully transformed guise. Already the steamer chairs were being tied up and piled away; the stewards, officiously anxious to render some last service, were hovering around. Mrs. Watson, in a plain tailor gown and quiet felt hat, was sitting heavily veiled apart and alone. There were no signs of either Mr. Watson or Mr. Sabin. The captain was on the bridge talking to the pilot. Scarcely a hundred yards away lay the _Kaiser Wilhelm_, white and stately, with her brass work shining like gold in the sunlight, and her decks as white as snow.