The silence was a trifle awkward when he went, and our eyes seemed to be glued to the spot where he disappeared; but now I turned to her. "I suppose Echochee was listening to his conversation with Monsieur, and told you. Tommy's full of ideas, but this is his masterpiece because it unlocked your prison." "It was I who listened--purposely," she said, without a trace of embarrassment, but laughed a little strangely as she asked: "You weren't ill, at all?" "Yes, I honestly was--with unhappiness; but not as near dead as he pretended." "And you're in no danger by talking to me?" "The greatest danger--but not from man-made prisons." "Oh, it feels so good to be up in this fresh air," she said irrelevantly, raising her face to the sky and taking a deep breath. "He was a scoundrel to keep you shut in down there," I declared; and then she told me of the old fellow's fabrications, really such atrocious lies that for a while I was undecided whether to thrash him or laugh. As it turned out, I laughed; because she did. She had moved to the rail and rested her arms on it, leaning over and looking pensively down at the water. I, also, went to stand by her, but, in turning, my eyes happened to glance through one of the cabin portlights at Tommy. He was seated comfortably in a deep chair, Doloria's box of candy stood on the table within easy reach, the newspaper was in his hands, a cigarette hung from his lips, and Echochee was just bringing him the basket of fruit I had taken so much care at Key West to have made attractive. "Picture of Tommy hurrying down for his cigarettes," I whispered. "Peep at him!" As she leaned forward and the light fell on her serious face, the attractive curves of mischief, always so maddening, touched the corners of her mouth. "Isn't he a dear," she murmured. "And there's nothing in the safe but the captain's old pipes?" "That's all. Tommy's waiting to soothe the professor when he makes that discovery, and keep him from coming on deck." She laughed guardedly, but there was no great spirit of fun in either of us, and again we turned back to our contemplation of the water, for a long time looking down at it in moody silence. I instinctively felt that she had not altered her decision. In the distance off our starboard bow a hairlike line of slowly brightening silver, forerunner of the climbing moon, touched the far horizon. It resembled a shining lake upon a great dark waste, and I told her it was my love trying to light my life that had turned to night without her.