[Illustration: FLORENCE WAS PERMITTED TO WANDER ABOUT THE SHIP AS SHE PLEASED] Susan wept, and the countess tried in vain to console her. And when Jones was informed he frightened even the countess with the snarl of rage which burned across his lips. He tore into the hall, seized his hat, and was gone. Not a word of reproach did he offer to the chauffeur. He understood that no one is infallible. He found the blundering policeman, who now realized that he stood in for a whiff of the commissioner's carpet. All he could do was to give a good description of the man and woman. Word was sent broadcast through the city. The police had to be informed this time. Late in the day an officer whose beat included the ferry landing at Hoboken said he had seen the three. Everything had looked all right to him. It was the motherly face of the one and the benign countenance of the other that had blinded him. At midnight Jones, haggard and with the air of one beaten, returned home. "No wireless yet?" asked Norton. "The _George Washington_ of the North German Lloyd does not answer. Something has happened to her wires; tampered with, possibly." "So long as we know they are at sea, we can remedy the evil. They will not be able to land at a single port. I have sent ten cables. They can't get away from the wire. If I could only get hold of the names of those damnable doctors who signed that document! Twenty years." Jones bent his head in his hands, and Norton tramped the floor till the sound of his footsteps threatened to drive the moaning Susan into hysterics. "It is only a matter of a few days." "But can the child stand the terrors?" questioned Jones. "Who knows that they may not really drive her insane?" On board the _George Washington_ every one felt extremely sorry for this beautiful girl. It was a frightful misfortune to be so stricken at her age. "She is certainly insane," said one of the passengers, who had known Hargreave slightly through some banking business. "Hargreave wasn't married. He lived alone." After the second day out Florence was permitted to wander about the ship as she pleased. A good many of the passengers were mightily worried when they learned that the wireless had in some mysterious way been tampered with after the boat had made the open sea. It was impossible to put about. The apparatus must be fixed at sea. [Illustration: EVERYONE FELT EXTREMELY SORRY FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL GIRL] And when finally Norton's wireless caught the wires of the _George Washington_ he was gravely informed that the young lady referred to had leaped the rail off the banks at night and had been drowned. She had not been missed till the following morning. CHAPTER X