"It must be because we have known each other so short a time, and our whole affair was so hurried. Goodness! I haven't found time yet to learn whether I am a benedict or still a bachelor. But how easily she assumes the little airs and graces of a bride! "I suppose most womenly women are so. Their whole young lives are lived in preparation for this event--the event of giving themselves into the keeping of the man they love." Ryder lacked expert knowledge on this point, it will be noted. "And what an imaginary little thing she is! Miss Solomons has nothing on Ruth when it comes to imagination," and Ryder made a face in the dark at thought of the house detective. "To think of a girl's dreaming about what her husband, whom she does not know and never has heard of, will be like; fairly conjuring up a vision of the man which the real husband, when he appears, has to stack up against. "Bless her heart! If she believes me half as fine and noble as the picture she imagined of the man she some day expected to marry---- By thunder! I wonder what is in that locket she wears and gazes at so fondly?" The thought pretty well awoke him. He cursed himself roundly, and aloud, and James stirred in his sleep and groaned. "Great heavens! That thought is unworthy of me--and of her!" Ryder muttered. "Bless her sweet face! No woman could hold sacred the memento of another man and show so clearly--as does Ruth--that she loves her husband. "Can I ever forget how she looked just now running through that hall? She was wild to think that some harm had befallen me--befallen her husband. No mistake there, John Ryder! You are it. You are the man she loves." He sighed ecstatically. He closed his eyes. He fell asleep almost at once. James was snoring gently. Old Cudger added his nasal murmur to James' snores. And from a distant corner that John Ryder had overlooked, the eagle eye of the house detective still watched him. When John Ryder awoke he was stiff and lame and chilled to his marrow. The candles had burned down to puddles of grease in the saucers. A cold gray light stole into the parlor through a high window and lay in a comfortless mantle over Mr. Cudger, James and "The Cheesemonger." The heart in John Ryder lay like lead. Never had he risen with such a sickening premonition of ill as upon this gloomy Saturday morning. Indeed, John Ryder was not in the habit of having premonitions at all. He was a healthy, sane and perfectly level-headed individual. Never before in his busy life had he found time for romance; and certainly the brand of romance that Fate had handed out to him since the _Minnequago_ had docked did not encourage Ryder to wish for more. "It was Friday!" he suddenly muttered. "No wonder everything went wrong. Friday!"