"A scoundrel. That's what he is. And next time we chance to meet I'll write the thing on him in good bold letters in my very plainest hand. He raised another fifty out of me. He undertook to place me in communication with my girl if I let him have it. He has placed me in communication neither with my girl nor with himself since he raised that fifty." Mr. Holman leaned against the side of the table on which he had just been having tea. He regarded his visitor with something like a twinkle in his eye. "Governor, do you mind my speaking a little plainly?" "I do not." "Take my tip, book a berth in the next boat, and go back where you came from. You'll be more at home like over there." "Not till I have looked upon her grave if she is dead, or on her face if she is living." "Ah, then, I shouldn't be surprised if you were to stay this side some time. You'll settle here." "Aren't the resources of civilisation sufficient to enable me to find my girl?" "The resources of civilisation aren't interested. You drove her away, it's for you to fetch her back again. What it strikes me is that she don't want to come, and she don't mean to, either." "She is dead." "How are you going to prove it?" "I want you to help me." "How am I going to help you any more than I have done? I'm a public servant. I receive instructions from my superiors, and I have to obey them. How am I going to devote myself to you? I don't know what good I should do if I could. Thousands of girls are missing; they leave home because they're sick of it, and they set up on their own hook. How do you think you're going to find 'em if they don't mean to be found? It may be easy in the stories, but it isn't out of them." Rising from his chair, Mr. Haines paced slowly across the room. Mr. Holman watched him. He noticed his air of extreme depression. "You do as I say, take my tip, and go back by the next ship. You'll be able to look for her as well there as over here--yes, and better. You say she knows what address will find you. You'll hear from her safe enough when she's had about enough of it. "Not me." "How can you tell that." "Because she's dead." Mr. Holman moved from the table with a gesture of impatience. Not impossibly he would have terminated the interview then and there. He looked as if language of even unusual strength was trembling on his lips. He was prevented, however, from giving it utterance by the unannounced entrance of a second visitor. The visitor was in the shape of a girl--a young girl. She was pretty, with a prettiness which more than suggested the theatre. She had an amazing array of short, fair hair. It shrined her face like a sort of coronal. The big hat was perched on the top of her hair. There was a hint of kohl about her pretty eyes. And though her plump cheeks were clean enough and tempting enough just then, one could have sworn that they had long been familiar with rouge.