Next morning Pen was late, for her, in getting down-stairs, and her father was before her. He had already been out-of-doors and had heard the startling news. He was pale with excitement, and his expression presented a comical mixture of elation and outraged parental authority.

"What is this?" he cried. "Counsell is caught? And caught by you!"

"That pleases you, doesn't it?" said Pen, in a quiet way very aggravating to an excited man.

"Pleases me?" he cried. "My daughter starting out at night on such an errand! Wandering around the woods with a gun! Pleases me!" He ended on a more human note. "You might have told me when you came in, instead of letting me learn it from strangers!"

"I was all in," said Pen simply. "I couldn't face the added excitement even of telling you."

"Um! Humph! Ha!" he snorted. "What will become of your reputation?"

"Mr. Riever didn't seemed to think it had suffered," Pen murmured slyly.

"Ha! ... Well, of course he wouldn't say so! ... I sha'n't be able to sleep quietly for thinking what might have happened!"

Pen saw that the indignant parent only wanted to put himself on record, and that underneath the man was delighted. She went ahead and gave him his breakfast. He ate it in a charming humor.

Afterwards she went about her household chores waiting for Riever, sick with anxiety. Suppose he didn't come? Suppose even then, the yacht was getting ready to sail? She couldn't go out to see. She simply could not humiliate her pride to the extent of going down to the wharf to look for her money.

After all Riever did come, and early, too. It still lacked a few minutes of nine. But he met Pendleton outside, who brought him in, and the two men were closeted in the front drawing-room for awhile. Pen felt by instinct that this interview boded her no good. Afterwards her father came to her in the kitchen saying:

"Mr. Riever wants to say good-by to you."

He avoided Pen's eye as he said it, and there were complacent little lines about the corners of his mouth. "Riever has given him more money!" Pen thought with sinking heart.

Pendleton did not accompany her back to the drawing-room. Riever was waiting for her, carefully dressed in his admirable, square-cut yachting suit. He was brisk, and inclined to be effusive, signs in Pen's eyes that he was secretly uneasy. But perhaps that was natural. His eyes were as devoid of expression as an animal's; she could not guess of what he was thinking; his words came merely from his lips.

"How are you?" he asked solicitously. "Ah, pale, I see! Not much sleep perhaps? Well thank God! this nasty business is about over."

Pen did not feel that this required any answer. She waited.

"I said I'd come to see you before I set sail this morning," Riever went on briskly—and then came to a somewhat lame pause.

Pen waited in an anxiety that was like a physical pain for him to produce a check-book or a bundle of notes. But he made no such move. There was an awkward silence. Finally he said as if at random:

"By the way do you know what became of Keesing's revolver? He's making a fuss about it."

"I haven't it," said Pen coolly.

"He said you took it from him," Riever said with a light laugh—but his eyes were tormented.

"He is mistaken," said Pen. "When he fell it flew out of his hand. I don't know what became of it."

"He said you carried it away in your hand."

"That was the pistol you gave me in the morning ... You saw it," she added, feeling pretty sure that Riever had been in no condition to distinguish one pistol from another.

"Why of course!" he said. "It's absurd." But there was no real conviction in his tones.

"If you'll wait a moment I'll get it for you," said Pen.

"Please don't bother," he said. "Keep it as a souvenir."

There was another silence. Pen saw that he dared not accuse her openly. The matter had to be threshed out to a conclusion, so she grasped her nettle firmly.

"What else did Mr. Keesing tell you?" she asked scornfully.

Riever's attempt to carry it off lightly was painful to see. "Oh, I don't take any stock in it," he said with his laugh.

"But I ought to know, shouldn't I?"

Riever laughed excessively. "Said you had no intention of giving him up until he surprised you together. Said you were just walking up and down the beach talking." His eyes were darting ugly, pained glances at her.

Pen laughed too. "In the full moonlight!" she exclaimed. She was secretly relieved. If Keesing had overheard their talk he would of course have repeated it.

"I told you there was nothing in it," said Riever.

"If I was ... friendly with him, do you think I'm the sort of person to give him up?" demanded Pen.

"Certainly not ... But Keesing said after he had recognized Counsell, there was nothing else for you to do."

"If I'd wanted to save the other man I could have shot Keesing," said Pen boldly.

Riever stared. "Well ... I believe you are capable of it," he muttered. That at least was honest.

Pen followed up her advantage quickly. "Obviously a crude attempt to get the reward for himself," she said.

"That's what I thought ... But Keesing clearly understood that there was nothing in it for him, anyway. He didn't bring the man in."

"Then it was just spite," said Pen.

"No doubt," said Riever.

Pen's heart sank. She was making no progress whatever. He would agree with everything she said, and act according to his own secret motives. She was determined to drag these out into the light.

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" she asked bluntly.

"Why, nothing!" he said with an air of surprise.

"I mean about the money," said Pen firmly.

He averted his head. "What do you want so much money for?" he muttered.

"What does anybody want money for?" said Pen. "Thousands of things!"

He came towards her eagerly. "Tell me what they are," he stuttered. "Anything ... anything money will buy! You have only to name it!"

"I can't take gifts from you," said Pen coldly. "I've earned this money, haven't I? You promised it."

"I don't go back on my promises," he muttered.

"Well then?"

"But just at the moment I haven't it by me."

Pen thought: "It's all over!" And tasted despair.

He went on more glibly: "One's money gets all tied up you know. And I've been under heavy expenses. Of course I can arrange it when I get back to town. I'll bring it to you myself. Just as soon as I can get this ugly business off my hands. It won't take long. Popular opinion demands that the man be tried speedily. And I can set certain influences at work. I fancy the trial will be brief. In six weeks you can expect to see me back again.... And under much happier circumstances I trust. I'm afraid at present you have certain doubts of me. Almost a dislike. This has been such a beastly business! When I come back my whole aim will be to remove your doubts. To show you what I really am. And what you mean to me. Thank God! time is on my side!"

Pen kept her eyes down to hide the thought she was sure must be speaking through them: "If you came back here under such circumstances I should kill you!"

Her stillness frightened him. He began to hedge. "But what am I saying? You don't have to wait for your money till I come back. It is a matter I can arrange with my bankers. You may expect a check within a week."

Pen was not deceived of course. She foresaw the silky, apologetic letter she would receive at the end of a week—without any check. She was silent.

Riever's instinct warned him against making any loverly demonstration at such a moment. "Good-by," he said.

Pen's generous, open nature imperiously demanded that she avow her true feelings, and crush him like the worm he was. It cost her a frightful, silent struggle to keep it in. She kept saying to herself mechanically: "We haven't convicted him yet. I must go on deceiving him!"

Without raising her eyes, she offered him her hand. He carried it lightly to his lips, and quickly left the room.

But how he got out, or what she herself did during the next half hour, Pen could never have told clearly. When she came back to the realization of things it was to find herself kneeling at one of the windows in her room listening to the clank of the yacht's anchor chain. The sound seemed to be striking on her bare heart. She saw the mud-hook slowly rise out of the water, and the yacht's screws set up a churning astern. The graceful vessel began to move. She came about in a wide circle and swept out of Pen's range of vision behind the trees. As she passed the lighthouse she saluted with three blasts of her melodious whistle, and the lighthouse bell tolled in answer.

Somewhere in the bowels of that vessel, in darkness perhaps, and manacled, sat the bright-haired Don, grinning derisively at misfortune. He was depending on her; keeping himself up no doubt with the assurance that she had secured the money to save him ... Pen's head dropped on her arms.


Upon the departure of the yacht, the crowd at Broome's Point quickly broke up. Slow-moving ox-carts started up the Neck road, and noisy motor-boats put off up the river and across the Bay. Before it was midday the old unbroken peace had descended on the remote estate, and all that had happened in between seemed like a dream. As of old, the fish-hawks plunged for their wriggling prey, buzzards circled high in the blue, hens clucked contentedly at the kitchen door, and the turkeys set up a sudden gobbling in the fields.

Pen could not long give herself up to despair. She must act if she wished to save her sanity. With a tormented face she went about the house in a whirl of activity. Black Aunt Maria's eyes rolled askance at her mistress. Pendleton remained down on the beach seeing the boats off. Pen suspected he was purposely keeping out of her way.

When he came in to dinner he was affecting an air of busy abstraction. When Pen addressed him he would reply, gently:

"Don't interrupt me, my dear, I have an idea just taking shape in my mind."

This wa............