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Show M HIP WMPm BEN AAES WILLIAMS Mis oln-ok burned darkly; ho ' mtutc mi Ironic snuntl like liuih'hlrr. "I'm not I If 1 did, sonuvnc would thul your hii:j;am'. Where did you leavo it?" "tin tho pier nt the head of your ladder. Just n b:u: and pack-sack. pack-sack. " There was n heap of dunnage dun-nage against the bulkhead; and she looked toward it instinctively and then exclaimed: "Oh! There's my bag! They must have loaded it aboard with yours, thought it was nil yours." She looked nt him. "So there's really no reason you shouldn't do what you will like with me, you see. Only, I do wish, before be-fore you do anything, you'd tell me why you want to?" His tone was dry with grit-f nnd weariness, "liecause you killed my brother! " Astonishment made her cold. "I?" The man's face twisted with pain. He threw up his hand in a helpless fashion. "Yes," he said in a weary monotone, "curse your little soul!" She cried: "Don't! Tell me quickly. quick-ly. Why do you say that? What do you mean?" "Oh I suppose it was nothing to you. Will was running the crane across the dock from the White Queen. You staged a private, personal per-sonal bathing-suit parade on the steamer's bow so three or four hundred hun-dred men could see your pretty little lit-tle figure. Will saw you. Naturally he forgot to watch his job, fogot everything but you. While he was goggling at you instead of watching his job he swung the crane too t " fc' r IS x -J i ' --. i h ; . . . WWM.rTO.tfS llll' SVOtiY SO KAH: When Will Mo-Vh.ul Mo-Vh.ul leAr (or Mho tl.t'. lioMn l:il di--ulrs li follow him. On the w.iy Nho meets ill's bi other Anitus, A dour Seot who hates women, tie does not Know that Nhe Is encased 10 Will, ami Kobtn realties real-ties that she must not come between the two men. So Instead of seelui; Will, KoMn stays on board when the White Queen docks. Hut Will. operatlnR a crane, sees It Ctrl on deck. As he turns to look he loses his balance and Is killed. 1 earnlnic that An.cns blames her, Kohtn (oes to his boat In the hope of maklns him understand. She falls asleep nnd awakes to tlnd the boat at sea. Now she Is talkiue, to Angus. Now continue wllh (he story. CH AVTKK VII K.'bin said, ns one explains to n child: "I didn't moan to slow away, to make trouble for you. I was taking tak-ing the cruise boat back to Quebec tonight; but it was late, and I hoped to see you, so I waited by your boat for you to come. When it began to rain, there was no shelter on the dock. I thought I might as well wait in the cabin." "So you came into my stateroom and made yourself nt home!" "Xot quite like that," she said patiently. pa-tiently. "Mr. Jenkins came aboard your boat just after I did. He was the man on the dock at Quai Ri-mouski; Ri-mouski; came down on the White Queen with us. I heard him on the dock, and when he started down the ladder, I hid in the stateroom. He and another man came into the cabin cab-in and started talking; and there was no place to sit in the stateroom, so I lay down. Before I knew it, I went to sleep." McPhail looked at her with bleak eyes. "Jenkins came aboard my boat?" "Yes. He'd been pretty friendly, friend-ly, and I didn't like him, so I hid, and lay down and slept till just now." She smiled in faint appeal. "I hadn't slept much last night, I'm afraid." "What time was all this?" "It must have been about half-past half-past six." Angus opened a door that led through engine room and galley into the forecastle; he left her in the cabin and went that way, and she heard the murmur of voices. Then he returned and closed the door and said simply: "Romeo was here from six o'clock on. He says Jenkins didn't come aboard." She colored faintly; but if Romeo denied having seen Jenkins, then Romeo whoever he might be lied. She wondered why. She asked: "Who is Romeo?" "Romeo Perrault My cook." "Did you tell him what I said?" "No. They don't know yet that you're aboard." "Who is Mr. Jenkins, Mr. McPhail? Mc-Phail? Do you know him?" Angus hesitated before he answered an-swered her. "I never met him till this trip. He's a salesman, sells canned goods, dry groceries. This North Shore and the Labrador is his territory." She realized that he was sufficiently puzzled by what she had told him to forget his anger for a moment. She said, holding his attention: at-tention: "Once when I was with him in Moose Bay he asked a man whether he had collected the tickets, and the man said 'yes' and Mr. Jenkins said to let them in. What did that mean?" His eyes narrowed. "I don't know." "Why are people afraid of him?" Without answering, he moved thoughtfully across the cabin, sat down at his desk, took off his battered bat-tered old hat and pressed his hands for a moment against his eyes. She saw that he was desperately tired. Somewhere he had changed his clothes since Will's funeral; had ridded rid-ded himself of those wet torn garments gar-ments in which he had returned from his two days in the wilderness. wilder-ness. He sat down and seemed to sag a little; and she said: "I'm afraid of him. A little." She added: "You see, he wanted me to go with him down to Labrador, Mr. McPhail. With Mrs. Freel as chap-erone. chap-erone. And after that, when he came aboard here, I didn't want to see him, so I hid." He nodded in a weary way. "So now you're on my hands. I suppose I've got to take you back to Moose Bay. If I don't, they'll turn out the police, planes, coast guard; waste a lot of Government money hunting for you." "I'm not sure I'll be missed," she reflected. "I checked out of the hotel; ho-tel; so the clerk will think I took the cruise boat. But I had no cabin engaged; so the purser didn't expect ex-pect me, won't wonder where I am. And I've no family to begin worrying. worry-ing. You don't need to take me back. No one will ask where I am." He stared at her in a sort of wonder. won-der. "Are you a fool? To tell me that? Don't you realize that I've come as near as that" he snapped his fingers "to choking the rotten life out of you?" She waited an instant to be sure of her voice, to steady her pounding pulse. She opened her hands with a simple gesture of surrender. "You're quite free to do anything you like to me, of course. If your men don't know I'm aboard, you could easily kill me and drop me over the stern." She tried to laugh. "But if you're going to why?" She did Nloi, nftcr n inunu'iit. She liflcil Iht lirad luul wiped her ryes nnd sat very quietly, lliinUing. 1 in fk to Moose liny? Angus, hchim! her, seemed to be wailing for Iht assent. Kohin snld slowly: "You ran drnp me somewhere, surely?" She turned toward liini; mul she thought he seemed smaller, ns though anger had gone out of him ami left less of him; he seemed small and weary nnd sad. lie said hopelessly: "I suppose so. You take tho stateroom. I'll sleep on the bench here tonight, nnd I can put you ashore at Heaver River tomorrow to-morrow afternoon. You can get a boat there day afler tomorrow." "All right. Can I go to bed now? We're both so tired." He lifted her bags, put them In the stateroom. Ho came out and she looked at him uncertainly. "Thank you," she said. Then she remembered something. "Mr. McPhail, Mc-Phail, one of your men did talk to Mr. Jenkins. I don't know whether it was the one you call Romeo or not; but I heard him. They talked French nnd I don't understand French; but his voice was clear, high, almost feminine." He nodded. She saw Uiat she was believed. "I know," he nssented, his eyes clouding. "But why the devil should he lie to me about it?" "I don't know, but I didn't lie about it. Good night, Mr. McPhail." When she was half asleep, she remembered re-membered a question she must ask him; but it could wait till morning. morn-ing. She felt drained and empty; felt bruised and sore all over, as though his bludgeon words had been actual blows. Her own grief for Will was forgotten in her pity for his brother. Thinking of Angus, she was suddenly deeply asleep, all perplexities per-plexities forgotten. Robin had elected to sleep in the upper of the two berths in the cabin, cab-in, because there was more room above it than above the lower berth, so that she need not feel cramped and confined. The berth was almost al-most as high as her shoulders; and she slept till someone spoke, near her. She opened her eyes to look up into the countenance of a man she had never seen before, leaning over her, saying something, smiling. This man had twinkling eyes; and he wore a neat small mustache, and he was definitely a handsome fellow with a good nose and a fine brown cheek, and hair of a rich wavy brown which any girl might have envied. There was a scrubbed look about him, and he was fresh shaven and his hair was brushed. She saw open admiration in his eyes; and she was rather glad that her pajamas pa-jamas were sufficiently substantial so that they might have served as well on the beach as in bed. Yet she was more amused than resentful. re-sentful. She forgave his bold, audacious auda-cious eye, and she thought suddenly of Will, to whom it was so easy to forgive much. Will and this man standing beside her bunk with a breakfast tray in his hands were deeply alike. Women would always forgive them easily. Probably if Will had lived and they had married, she would have spent the rest of her life forgiving him his trespasses. The man beside her said something, and she said, "What?" And he spoke again, in French, and by that time she was sufficiently wide awake to smell the strong tea and the crisp toast on his tray. She said, "Oh, thank you." And then, pleased with herself for remembering, "Merci, m'sieu!" She wondered how to tell him to put the tray down somewhere. some-where. She preferred not to sit up till he was gone. She tried pointing, point-ing, pointing at the foot of her bunk, and groping in her memory and said tentatively, "ce jette la!" He laughed at that. He had excellent ex-cellent teeth. He laughed, and chattered chat-tered something so fast she could get no word of it; and she decided "jette" was probably the wrong word. Jettison meant to throw something overboard, and a jetty was something thrown out from shore into the water like a pier. "Jette" must be wrong, and he was telling her so. She thought if he talked more slowly she might understand, un-derstand, so she said: "Plus tard, s'il vous plait?" But that left him bewildered. He put the tray on the foot of her bunk, bowed elaborately, backed out and closed the door. She wondered about running water and things. Certainly Certain-ly there was nothing of the sort in this small cabin. But she was hungry; hun-gry; too hungry to delay breakfast. Was it breakfast or lunch? But whatever the hour, she was hungry; so she ate first and dressed afterward. When she emerged into the cabin, it was deserted; but she opened the door that led through the engine room into the galley, and the handsome Frenchman saw her and came smilingly toward her. She realized he must be Romeo who might be a friend of Mr. Jenkins. She asked, carefully: "Ou est la . . ." She could remember re-member no likely word; so she made a gesture of washing her hands; and he laughed audaciously, and opened the right door and showed her how to pump the water, and brought her a towel. She said, "Merci, m'sieu," and his eyes twinkled. twin-kled. She thought she and Romeo would get along. (TO BE CONTINUED) I hid in the stateroom. quickly, and the load pulled him overboard. You might as well have shot him." Her heart was squeezed in a vise of pain. She whispered helplessly: "I didn't mean to! I didn't mean anything. I was just going swimming!" swim-ming!" Angus laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound. "I've spent these two days alone in the woods, in the rain, thinking what I'd do to you." His tones were flat, without inflection. She watched him for a moment, forgetting herself. She said quietly: "Let's grow up, Mr. McPhail." There was something like scorn in her tones and his cheek burned red. "I suppose you think you're safe. You think I'm a gentleman. You think I'll give up my cabin to you, defer to you, protect you." "Yes," she assented. "I'm sorry you're so hurt and so grieving; but after all, you're an adult. Now, how can you get rid of me most easily? eas-ily? You don't need to take me back to Moose Bay, do you? There must be places up here, towns, where you can land me." "Fishing villages. Fishermen. Foolish, hospitable folk, not wise enough to tie a stone around your neck and throw you overboard. They'll take care of you." "Please don't go on being silly." He considered her for a moment as dispassionately as though she were under a microscope. "You're so sure of your charm, aren't you? Of your power to command men, to coquet with them, make them fall in love with you?" Robin rose, touched his arm. "I'm sorry, Mr. McPhail," she said. "I didn't mean to speak lightly; light-ly; to make a joke of this. You must know it isn't a joke to me to be told I've caused a man to die." She held her voice steady. "I suppose I am a little scared, too. Probably any girl would be." Her voice broke and she laughed like a sob, and then dropped on the bench again, her head in her arms, crying hard. It felt good. She cried till after some minutes his hand dropped on her shoulder; till he said angrily: "Don't do that! Stop! Stop it! I'll take you back to Moose Bay." |