“Oh, if he only could,” Elithe said, and Tom continued: “I can do it, but must have help. I can trust no one but you. Will you go with me to-night? You know the Ralston boat-house. Meet me there at twelve o’clock sharp. We’ll row up the coast, opposite the jail. I know a place where we can land. I’ve been there two or three times. We can fasten the boat till we get him out. What do you say?” Elithe had scarcely breathed as Tom talked, but now she said, “What will you do with him? He can’t go on the street.” “Leave that to me,” Tom replied. “You’ve heard of that queer room in the basement of the Ralston House, once used by smugglers, they say. Few know the entrance to it. We’ll keep him there till the search blows over. It won’t last long, or be very thorough. Then, we’ll get him off the island some way if I have to row him across to the Basin. I can do that, and he can go to Europe or Canada or somewhere. There’s not a man, woman or child that will not be glad to hear he has escaped.” Elithe was young and ignorant and excited, and did not consider the risk in trying to escape from the island, or the obstacles to be surmounted after it and the sure penalty if he were captured. She only thought of Paul free, and that by helping to free him she would atone for her testimony against him. Just why Tom needed her she did not ask, and he scarcely knew himself, except that he wanted companionship and knew he could trust her. After thinking a moment, she said, “I’ll go with you, but I’d like to tell auntie.” “Not for the world!” was Tom’s energetic response. “Nobody must know it but you and me. After he is safe in the basement, I shall tell his father and mother.”