"You don't have to go back," said Payne. "The ditching can wait. I'll have them moor the ditcher here. You can get aboard the tug and I'll have them take you to Key West, to Fort Myers, Tampa--any place you want to go. From there you can go anywhere, as far away as you wish to go." "Really?" she cried, "Oh, but that poor little tug--the Egret would catch her in a mile." "If you get on that tug I will see that you go wherever you wish to go." "Once aboard the lugger and the girl is free!" she quoted. "No, no. You don't understand. It isn't so simple as that. If it was merely a question of getting away, do you think I would be afraid? It's more than that. It's all in myself, all here." She struck her bosom with a white clenched fist. "It is something in myself--it's something I've got to settle all by myself. You must not try to interfere. Win or lose, no one can help me--no one. That is why I must go back--though I am afraid." The Egret had crept past the length of the ditcher, disdaining to approach its grimy hull with her immaculate sides. She was approaching the squat little tug. Suddenly the girl held out her hand. "Good-by," she said. "Good-by?" he stammered, "Surely it isn't good-by?" The Egret's starboard ladder was gently chaffing the tug's fender. "It isn't good-by!" he said. "I am afraid it is." She watched him as he went over the side onto the tug's deck. The Egret, as if freed from a burden, shot sharply forward. Annette leaned far over the rail. "Good-by," she murmured. "Good-by!" XXVI "Mr. Payne, I take it?" Roger turned to face the speaker, a tall, hawk-nosed man whose sallow, leathery face was set in the lines of the hard worker. "Yes, I'm Payne. Are you the captain?" "I'm boss of the ditching outfit, Mr. Payne. White's my name. Was you planning we should lay up at Gumbo Key to-night?" Roger looked across the bay at the last glimpse of the Egret's white hull as she sped into the mouth of the river. The setting sun glinted on paint and nickel and brasswork. It was fancy, perhaps, but he seemed to make out the figure of Annette still leaning over the starboard rail. "Yes--I was," he said slowly. The Egret shifted her course slightly, and like the snuffing of a light disappeared round the first bend in the river. "Well, I dunno," said White. "So far's I'm concerned the quicker I get my outfit up the river the better I'll like it." "Do you know the river well?" "Reckon I do." "Can you run it by night?" "Shore can--especially as it's going to be broad moonlight." "All right," said Roger. "Let's go."