"Very truly yours, "MARCIA FEVERSHAM. "Tuesday, September seventh." "That floating palace ought to stir up some breeze." Tisdale crumpled the invitation again and dropped it deliberately in the waste basket. "And to-morrow I shall be shut up on my eastbound train." He looked at his watch; there was still half an hour to spare before the time of sailing. "After all, why not?" A little later, when he had hurried into white flannels as expeditiously as possible with his disabled hand, the suggestion crept to his inner consciousness that he might find Mrs. Weatherbee aboard the _Aquila_. "Well, why not?" he asked himself again. "Why not?" and picked up his hat. So he came to Pier Number Three and, looking down the gangway as he crossed, saw her standing in the little group awaiting him on the after deck. Morganstein spoke to him and introduced him to the ladies. He did not avoid her look and, under his appraising eyes, he saw the color begin to play in her face. Then her glance fell to his bandaged hand, and an inquiry rushed to her lips. But she checked the words in time and drew slowly aloof to a seat near the rail. Tisdale took a place near the reclining chair of his host. When she ventured to give him a swift side-glance, his mouth set austerely. But the space between them became electrical. It was as though wireless messages passed continually between them. "Look back. See how often I tried to tell you! My courage failed. Believe in me. I am not the monster you thought." And always the one response: "The facts are all against you." Duwamish Head had dropped from sight; Magnolia Bluff fell far astern, and the _Aquila_ steamed out into the long, broad reach of Puget Sound; but though the tide had turned, there was still no wind. The late sun touched the glassy swells with the changing effect of a prism. The prow of the craft shattered this mirror, and her wake stretched in a ragged and widening crack. But under the awnings Frederic Morganstein's guests found it delightfully cool. Only Jimmie Daniels, huddled on a stool in the glare, outside the lowered curtain that cut him off from the breeze created by the motion of the yacht, felt uncomfortably warm. The representative of the _Press_ had arrived on board in time to see Tisdale come down the pier and had discreetly availed himself of the secluded place that the financier had previously put to his disposal. He had heard it told at the newspaper office that Tisdale, whose golden statements were to furnish his little scoop, Hollis Tisdale of Alaska and the Geographical Survey, who knew more about the coal situation than any other man, was also the most silent, baffling sphinx on record when it came to an interview.