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stepping still nearer the operating-table.

      Her voice betrayed no trace of foreign origin, as McKinnon had at first expected it might. The speech was that of a well-groomed New York girl, the type of girl that McKinnon had so often noted about the Fifth Avenue shops and the theatre lobbies. The voice was the New York voice, yet with a difference. It was the slightest and thinnest substratum of accent, of modulation, that made up this difference. Yet in doing so it imparted to her words a mild and bewitching gentleness of tone that seemed to hint at some indefinably exotic influence of education or environment. It seemed to impart to her the crisp piquancy of the Parisian, persistently yet mysteriously accounting for her birdlike alertness of poise and movement, for some continuous suggestion of schoolgirl youthfulness that belied her actual years. It seemed to convert what he had at first accepted as audacity into fortitude touched with discretion.

      "Then you are sending," she said, as though in answer to her own question.

      ​"I'm sorry," said McKinnon, backing away from the chair that she might take it if she chose. "I'm sorry, but I've just stopped for the night."

      For the first time he was conscious of the fact that he had been at work in his shirt-sleeves, and that these sleeves were wofully soiled. He took down his coat and struggled into it. The young woman noticed the movement gratefully and sank into the chair he had abandoned for her.

      "But can you not get somebody?" she asked. There was no note of pleading, in her voice, but the mute appeal of her eyes as they rested on his made him suddenly change his mind.

      "I've been having trouble with that tuner of mine," he explained. "It's rather hard for us to pick up anything on a thick night like this, you know. But I'll try."

      She bent a little to one side as he leaned over the table and threw down the switch-lever. They were side by side, almost touching each other.

      "Why is it hard?" she asked.

      "It's not easy to explain without being technical, but wireless works 'heavy' in damp weather. You may have noticed it with telephones, even, on rainy days."

      ​"Yes, I have," she said with a preoccupied nod, turning her gaze from the switch-lever to McKinnon's face.

      He caught the key in his fingers and the blue spark once more leaped and exploded across the spark-gap. The girl watched him with intent eyes and slightly parted lips as he fitted the "set" to his head and listened with the 'phones pressed against his ears.

      McKinnon was keenly conscious of her presence there so close beside him. There was something perversely and insidiously exhilarating in it. It made him forget the hour and the fact that he was bone-tired. The orderlylike stewardess fluttering about, he supposed, somewhere beyond the closed door, alone took the romance out of a visit so deliberately secret. He turned to his key again, and again called through the night. Then he adjusted his phones and listened. He finally put down his "set," with a shake of the head.

      "I'm afraid we'll have to wait until morning," he said.

      "I'm sorry," she answered, with her studious eyes on the dancing-girl lithograph above the faded wall-map.

      "If you'll leave the message, I'll file it," McKinnon explained, to hide his resentment at the ​half-derisive touch that had crept into her glance.

      The woman handed him the message-form, with her intent eyes now on his.

      "Must I pay now?" she asked.

      "It will be charged against your stateroom; the purser will collect it before you land," explained the operator as he jabbed the message on his send-hook with a businesslike sweep of the hand.

      "But you will see that it's sent?" she asked as she rose to her feet.

      "It will be off before you're up," McKinnon answered, watching her as she drew the heavy folds of her veil close down over her face. She looked back, at the door, with a timidly audacious nod of the head. The next moment the door closed and she was gone.

      McKinnon, still conscious of the subtle fragrance that filled the room, swung about to his table. He paused only a second to wonder a little at this faint but persistent perfume that seemed to have charged and changed the very atmosphere about him. Then he crossed the cabin and reached up and ripped a brightly coloured lithograph from the wall, bisecting the terpsichorean figure with one impatient tear of the paper.

      ​He stood in the middle of the room for a moment or two without moving. Then he crossed to his table, reached out to the send-hook, and quickly unspeared the message.

      He looked at it for several moments. Then he passed his hands over his tired eyes and reread the words. They were addressed to Enrique Luis Carbo, Locombian Consulate, New Orleans, and they said:

      Am on board Laminian, bound from New York to Puerto Locombia. Advise necessary quarters. Alicia Boynton.

      McKinnon was still peering down at the message in his hand when he was startled by the sound of someone at his door. Even before he could restore the message to the hook his door was opened and as quickly closed again.

      It was the girl who had just left him. He noticed that she held one hand on her breast and that she was panting. She leaned against the jamb for a minute or two, as though weak from fright.

      "What is it?" the operator asked.

      "Oh, it's nothing," she faltered, struggling bravely enough to regain her composure. Her answer was not altogether convincing.

      "What has happened?" persisted the startled operator.

      ​She moved away from the door, in a listening attitude.

      "It was a man," she tried to explain, inadequately. "He frightened me."

      "But what man?"

      "A stranger—somebody outside."

      "You mean that he dared to speak to you?"

      There was a moment's silence.

      "No," she answered in her low voice. "But it was the shock of seeing him so so unexpectedly."

      McKinnon stepped across the cabin and stood near her. His efforts to catch some clearer glimpse of the veiled face were fruitless. She reminded him of a ruffled bird.

      "Won't you sit down until you feel better?"

      "No, no! I must go! It's so late! I must go!"

      But she still hesitated.

      "Shall I take you to your cabin?" he ventured.

      She showed actual alarm at this.

      "Oh, no; that is out of the question. But if you will turn down your lights until I have slipped away——"

      He snapped out the electrics. He could hear her in the darkness quietly opening the door. She stood there looking out for several moments. "Good-night," she whispered ​gratefully as she slipped across the deck and was gone.

      McKinnon stood looking after her, deep in thought

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