"My father is false to me!" mutinied her wild little heart. "He has deceived me! And about a lady!" woke jealousy. "We didn't _need_ another lady! And what earthly reason could two people have for pretending to be strangers when they really were lovers? But how could two people possibly be lovers," she questioned suddenly with an entirely new stab of bewilderment and pain, "if one of them was already married to somebody else? If one of them indeed was actually on a honeymoon? Even though at the particular moment she might have run away from her honeymoon? Marriage was marriage, people said! You had to play it fair! Everybody had to play it fair! It was like a game! Even people who cheated in business wouldn't think of cheating in games! It wasn't good sportsmanship! It wasn't----" Feverishly her fancy quickened and raged at all its [151] pulses. "If my father isn't good," she tortured, "who is good? If my father isn't good, what is good? If my father isn't good--what's the use of anybody being good?" Defiantly she lifted her eyes to the stars. And the stars laughed at her! Distractedly she turned her ear to the Gulf and heard the Gulf nudging the poor old launch in its ribs! Then like the bumpy end of a dream, infinitely alarming, irresistibly awakening, the little launch snubbed its nose into wood in stead of a wave, and the voyage was over! Gracing the upper step of a peculiarly water-logged and dilapidated looking pier the yellow lantern flared down its wan welcome to the voyagers' eyes. There was not a soul in sight, nor any sign of human habitation except the lantern and the ruined pier. "Truly it must be very lonesome for a lantern--living all alone like this," observed the Brown Khaki Lady's faintly mocking voice. Then suddenly out of the further shadows where pier and land presumably met, creeping low on its belly, and whimpering with [152] excitement, emerged a little dark body edging frenziedly toward them. "Why--what the dickens?" cried Jaffrey Bretton. "Why, how in thunder? Well, I should think Martha _had_ 'got something'! Why it's Creep-Mouse!" he shouted, and jumped ashore. Scramblingly the Brown Khaki Lady followed after him. "Here! Wait for me!" she begged. As he swung round to help her a single phrase passed his lips. "Pull down your hat-brim!" he ordered. "In this light your hair looks almost crimson!" Then man, and woman, and dog faded into the shadow. With a grunt of indifference, Lost Man and the Outlaw resumed their eternal job of tinkering with the engine. Shadows working on shadows!