The morning sunshine streamed through the little window and fell directly upon the pile of newspapers he had brought from the kitchen and thrown on the floor. His glance chanced to rest for an instant upon the topmost paper of the pile. It was a New York journal which devotes two of its inside pages to happenings in society. When he threw it down it had unfolded so that one of these pages lay uppermost. Absently, scarcely realizing that he was doing so, the substitute assistant read as follows: “Engagement in High Life Announced. Another American Girl to Wed a Nobleman. Miss Ann Gardner Davidson to become the Baroness Hardacre.” With a shout he fell upon his knees, seized the paper and read on: “Another contemplated matrimonial alliance between one of New York's fairest daughters and a scion of the English nobility was made public yesterday. Miss Ann Gardner Davidson, of this city, the breaking of whose engagement to Russell Agnew Brooks, son of George Agnew Brooks, the wealthy cotton broker, was the sensation of the early spring, is to marry Herbert Ainsworth-Ainsworth, Baron Hardacre, of Hardacre Towers, Surrey on Kent, England. It was said that the young lady broke off her former engagement with Young Brooks because of--” The prisoner in the boathouse read no further. Ruth Graham had said to him the day before that, in her opinion, he had treated Ann Davidson unfairly. He should have gone to her and told her of his quarrel with his father. Although he did not care for Ann, she might care for him. Might care enough to wait and . . . Wait? Why, she cared so little that, within a few months, she was ready to marry another man. And, if he owed her any debt of honor, no matter how farfetched and fantastic, it was canceled now. He was absolutely free. And he had been right all the time. He could prove it. He would show Ruth Graham that paper and . . . His jaw set tight, and he rose from the heap of fish nets with the folded paper clinched like a club in his hand. He was going to get out of that boathouse if he had to butt a hole through its boards with his head. Once more he climbed to the window and made an attempt to squeeze through. It was futile, of course, but this time it seemed to him that the sill and the plank to which it was attached gave a little. He put the paper between his teeth, seized the sill with both hands, braced his feet against a beam below, and jerked with all his strength. Once--twice--three times! It was giving! It was pulling loose! He landed on his back upon the nets, sill and a foot of boarding in his hands. In exactly five seconds, the folded newspaper jammed in his trousers pocket, he swung through the opening and dropped to the narrow space between the building and the end of the wharf.