And afterward, when the _Belle Julie's_ prow was once more turned to the north, Miss Farnham had no thought of stopping at the clerk's office when she flew back to her state-room with the letter to Mr. Galbraith hidden in her bosom and clutched tightly as if she were afraid it might cry out its accusing secret of its own accord. X QUICKSANDS On the morning following the rescue of the mate, Charlotte Farnham awoke with the conviction that she had been miraculously saved from incurring the penalties dealt out to those who rush blindly into the thick of things without due thought and careful consideration. In the light of a new day it seemed almost incredible that, only a few hours earlier, she could have been so rash as to assume that there was no possibility of a mistake; that she had been on the verge of sending a possibly innocent man to answer as he could for the sins of the guilty. Who could be sure? Could she go into court and swear that this man and the man she had seen in the bank were one and the same? Yesterday she had thought that she could; but to-day she was equally sure that she could not. But the Puritan conscience was not to be entirely silenced. Reason sits in a higher seat than that occupied by the senses, and reason argued that a man who would forgive his enemy, and instantly risk his life in proof of the forgiveness, could not be a desperate criminal. Conscience pointed out the alternative. A little careful investigation would remove the doubt--or confirm it. Somebody on the boat must know the deck-hand, or know enough about him to establish his real identity. Naturally, Charlotte thought first of Captain Mayfield; and when breakfast was over, and she had settled her aunt in the invalid's chair under the shade of the after-awning, she went on her quest. The captain was on the port promenade, forward, and he was about to light his after-breakfast cigar. But he threw the match away when Miss Farnham came out and took the chair he placed for her. "Please smoke if you want to," she said, noting the clipped cigar; "I don't mind it in the least." "Thank you," said the master of the _Belle Julie_, shifting his chair to leeward and finding another match. He had grown daughters of his own, and Miss Farnham reminded him of the one who lived in St. Louis and took her dead mother's place in a home which would otherwise have held no welcome for a grizzled old river-sailor. For a time Miss Farnham seemed to have forgotten what she came to say, and the ash grew longer on the captain's cigar. It was another delectable day, and the _Belle Julie_ was still churning the brown flood in the majestic reaches of the lower river. Down on the fore-deck the roustabouts were singing. It was some old-time plantation melody, and Charlotte could not catch the words; but the blending harmony, rich in the altogether inimitable timbre of the African song-voice, rose above the throbbing of the engines and the splash of the paddles.