John Grayson appeared for a moment to contemplate the suggestion of going ashore in the yawl. The wind came in a great gust through the towering chimneys, the lights flickered, the texas seemed to rock upon the superstructure of the hurricane deck. “I don’t believe I care to be on the river in a yawl in this wind, this dark night,” he said, evidently debating the matter within himself. “Then go to St. Louis and back with us!” exclaimed the hospitable captain. “Shan’t cost you a cent, of course. We’ll make our next landing a little after midnight, I reckon, and I’ll telegraph Mrs. Halliday from there.” The jovial evening seemed to the juggler, as he listened to the girl reading aloud, and stared at her with eyes blank of expression and that introverted look which follows mental processes rather than material objects, like an experience in another planet, so far away it was, as if so long ago. He remembered that he scarcely dared to touch a glass, with the consciousness of the treasure he carried in the belt he wore and all its interdependent interests, but John Grayson drank blithely enough, and the generous liquor relaxed beyond all precedent his loosely hinged tongue. Lucien Royce kept close by his side as he wandered about the boat, having developed a fear that he would tell the secret that had come so unwarrantably into his possession; and when the captain asked as a favor that, on account of the crowded condition of the boat, Royce would share his stateroom with the guest, he acceded at once, preferring to have Grayson able to talk only to him until such time as he should be once more duly sober. He consigned the guest to the upper berth, thinking that thus Grayson could not leave the stateroom without his knowledge. He lay awake by a great effort until he was sure from the snores of his jovial friend that Grayson was asleep; and when he dropped into slumber himself, as he was young and tired, having been much in the open air that day, to which he was unaccustomed in his clerical vocation, he slept like a log. His consciousness was renewed, after a blank interval, with the sense of being awakened in his berth by a violent jar, and of striving to rouse himself, and of falling asleep again. Another interval of blankness, and he remembered definitely the grasp of John Grayson’s hand on his shoulder, roughly shaking him, with the terrified announcement that there was something the matter. He experienced a sort of surprise that John Grayson was in the stateroom; then--it was strange that his mind should have thus taken cognizance of trifles--he recalled the crowded condition of the boat, and realized that his friend was leaping down from the upper berth. He stated, with drowsy dignity, that he did not care a damn what was the matter; that he had paid for his stateroom, which was more than _some_ people could say, and that if he were not allowed to sleep in it, he would give bond that he would know the reason why.