And Edith Atherton saw him, although she did consider a man on a newspaper little, if anything, higher than a deck-hand in a Bay ferry-boat. She had never understood what he was doing in California at all. He went to interview her, and she interviewed him. "I'm here as a man from the _Chronicle_, Miss Atherton," said Gardiner. He spoke almost timidly. It was the first time he had ever been alone with her. "You are not here as a man from the _Chronicle_" said Edith. "You mean----?" said Gardiner eagerly. "I mean that," said Edith--"just that. You are here as the Mr. Gardiner I met in New York." Gardiner's eyes sparkled. He looked at her, smiled, and then laughed. "But mayn't I ask you anything about the--mystery?" he asked. "I don't see what it has to do with me," replied Edith. "But I see your paper says they have been shanghaied? Tell me what that means." He explained: no man knew better. "You mean they have gone to sea as common sailors?" she exclaimed. "That is the theory of the _Chronicle_" said Gardiner drily. "If we are right, it will do them both good." "I'm rather sorry for Sibley Gawthrop," she said; but Gardiner was not so young as to be discouraged by her sympathy for Sibley. "May I be sorry for him too?" asked Gardiner, boldly. Edith Atherton stared at him and dropped her eyes. "How is your father?" she asked irrelevantly. "He was a very nice old man." "So he is," replied Gardiner, "the only trouble was that he believed he owned me. He came from the South, and was one of the few Southerners, who, on losing their slaves, played their own game on the men from the North. He and I quarrelled about a subject in which I considered he had no right to interfere." There were no obvious implications in the way he spoke, and Edith Atherton saw none. "What was that?" she asked, innocently enough. "His view was that I shouldn't marry until he let me. I wanted to marry you." Edith gasped a little and took hold of her chair as she bent forward. "Indeed, Mr. Gardiner." "And I still want to, Miss Atherton. And as the lady whom he wished me to marry was married a month ago, I think he will forgive me, if I ask him. It was always understood, even when we parted, that he would reinstate me as his partner if I succeeded for myself." "And have you succeeded?" asked Edith with bent head. Gardiner rose from his chair and went towards her. "That is for you to say," he cried. And when he returned to the office he handed in no more than a paragraph. It was considered in some quarters an adequate explanation of the disappearance of Hunt and Gawthrop. Yet it was not adequate for Edith. It was only when she became Mrs. Gardiner, and they were on their way East, that her husband told her the truth. "I'm really very sorry now," said Gardiner. "Nevertheless, it will do them lots of good. They required it. You never really liked either of them, Edith?"