latter, Eugene’s companion disappeared. And when Eugene had observed its position with reference to the other boats, and had made sure that he could not miss it, he turned his eyes upon the building where, as he had been told, the lonely girl with the dark hair sat by the fire.

He could see the light of the fire shining through the window. Perhaps it drew him on to look in. Perhaps he had come out with the express intention. That part of the bank having rank grass growing on it, there was no difficulty in getting close, without any noise of footsteps: it was but to scramble up a ragged face of pretty hard mud some three or four feet high and come upon the grass and to the window. He came to the window by that means.

She had no other light than the light of the fire. The unkindled lamp stood on the table. She sat on the ground, looking at the brazier, with her face leaning on her hand. There was a kind of film or flicker on her face, which at first he took to be the fitful firelight; but, on a second look, he saw that she was weeping. A sad and solitary spectacle, as shown him by the rising and the falling of the fire.

It was a little window of but four pieces of glass, and was not curtained; he chose it because the larger window near it was. It showed him the room, and the bills upon the wall respecting the drowned people starting out and receding by turns. But he glanced slightly at them, though he looked long and steadily at her. A deep rich piece of color, with the brown flush of her cheek and the shining lustre of her hair, though sad and solitary, weeping by the rising and the falling of the fire.

She started up. He had been so very still, that he felt sure it was not he who had disturbed her, so merely withdrew from the window and stood near it in the shadow of the wall. She opened the door, and said in an alarmed tone, “Father, was that you calling me?” And again, “Father!” And once again, after listening, “Father! I thought I heard you call me twice before!”

No response. As she re-entered at the door, he dropped over the bank and made his way back, among the ooze and near the hiding-place, to Mortimer Lightwood: to whom he told what he had seen of the girl, and how this was becoming very grim indeed.

“If the real man feels as guilty as I do,” said Eugene, “he is remarkably uncomfortable.”

“Influence of secresy,” suggested Lightwood.

“I am not at all obliged to it for making me Guy Fawkes in the vault and a Sneak in the area both at once,” said Eugene. “Give me some more of that stuff.”

Lightwood helped him to some more of that stuff, but it had been cooling, and didn’t answer now.

“Pooh,” said Eugene, spitting it out among the ashes. “Tastes like the wash of the river.”

“Are you so familiar with the flavor of the wash of the river?”

“I seem to be to-night. I feel as if I had been half drowned, and swallowing a gallon of it.”

“Influence of locality,” suggested Lightwood.

“You are mighty learned to-night, you and your influences,” returned Eugene. “How long shall we stay here?”

“How long do you think?”

“If I could choose, I should say a minute,” replied Eugene, “for the Jolly Fellowship Porters are not the jolliest dogs I have known. But I suppose we are best here until they turn us out with the other suspicious characters, at midnight.”