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"Pardon me, Miss Harding," he said; "the door is bolted--let me unlatch it for

you," and very gallantly he did so, swinging the portal wide that she might pass

out. "I feared interruption," he said, in explanation of the bolt.

In silence they returned to the upper deck. The intoxication of sudden passion

now under control, Theriere was again master of himself and ready to play the

cold, calculating, waiting game that he had determined upon. Part of his plan was

to see just enough of Miss Harding to insure a place in her mind at all times; but

not enough to suggest that he was forcing himself upon her. Rightly, he assumed

that she would appreciate thoughtful deference to her comfort and safety under

the harrowing conditions of her present existence more than a forced

companionship that might entail too open devotion on his part. And so he raised

his cap and left her, only urging her to call upon him at any time that he might

be of service to her.

Left alone the girl became lost in unhappy reflections, and in the harrowing

ordeal of attempting to readjust herself to the knowledge that Larry Divine, her

lifelong friend, was the instigator of the atrocious villainy that had been

perpetrated against her and her father. She found it almost equally difficult to

believe that Mr. Theriere was so much more sinned against than sinning as he

would have had her believe. And yet, did his story not sound even more plausible

than that of Divine which she had accepted before Theriere had made it possible

for her to know the truth? Why, then, was it so difficult for her to believe the

Frenchman? She could not say, but in the inmost recesses of her heart she knew

that she mistrusted and feared the man.

As she stood leaning against the rail, buried deep in thought, Billy Byrne passed

close behind her. At sight of her a sneer curled his lip. How he hated her! Not that

she ever had done aught to harm him, but rather because she represented to him

in concrete form all that he had learned to hate and loathe since early childhood.

Her soft, white skin; her shapely hands and well-cared-for nails; her trim figure

and perfectly fitting suit all taunted him with their superiority over him and his

kind. He knew that she looked down upon him as an inferior being. She was of

the class that addressed those in his walk of life as "my man." Lord, how he hated

that appellation!

The intentness of his gaze upon her back had the effect so often noted by the

observant, and suddenly aroused from the lethargy of her misery the girl swung

around to meet the man's eyes squarely upon her. Instantly she recognized him

as the brute who had killed Billy Mallory. If there had been hate in the mucker's

eyes as he looked at the girl, it was as nothing by comparison with the loathing

and disgust which sprang to hers as they rested upon his sullen face.

The Mucker