"Moored to a breakwater below was a boat, and a man was standing near her. I called out to him, asking what time it was. He answered, 'Don' know,' and I knew him at once to be foreign and, probably, Japanese. So I went down toward him. "When he saw that I was coming, he got into the boat. He seemed to be frightened and hurried, and I inferred that he was about to cast off, and I called out that I was alone. At that he waited, but he did not get out of the boat, and I was standing at the edge of the breakwater, just above him, before he actually seemed to recognize me." "Did you know him?" asked Orme. "I never saw him before to my knowledge; but he made an exclamation which indicated that he knew me." "What did he do then?" "I told him that I wished to talk to him about the papers. His answer was that, if I would step down into the boat, he would talk. He said that he would not leave the boat, and added that he was unwilling to discuss the matter aloud. And I was foolish enough to believe his excuses. If he wished to whisper, I said to myself, why, I would whisper. I never felt so like a conspirator." She paused to look up at the street-sign at the corner which they had reached, and turned to the right on a shady avenue. "Well, I got into the boat," she continued. "I told him that I--my father was prepared to pay him a large sum of money for the papers, but he only shook his head and said, 'No, no.' I named a sum; then a larger one; but money did not seem to tempt him, though I made the second offer as large as I dared. "'How much _will_ you take then?' I asked at last. Instead of answering, he bent down and started the motor, and then I noticed for the first time that while I was talking we had been drifting away from the dock. I made ready to jump overboard. We were near the shore, and the water was not deep; anyway, I am a fair swimmer. But he turned and seized my wrists and forced me down into the bottom of the boat. I struggled, but it was no use, and when I opened my mouth to scream, he choked me with one hand and with the other pulled from his pocket a handkerchief and tried to put it in my mouth." She gave a weary little laugh. "It was such a crumpled, unclean handkerchief, I couldn't have stood it. So I managed to gasp that, if he would only let me alone, I would keep quiet." "The brute!" muttered Orme. "Oh, I don't think he intended to hurt me. What he feared, as nearly as I can make out, is that I might have him intercepted if he let me go free. That must have been why he tried to take me with him. Probably he planned to beach the boat at some unfrequented point on the North Side and leave me to shift for myself. "When your boat came, of course I didn't know who was in it. I never dreamed it would be you. And I had promised to keep still." "Hardly a binding promise."