Page 146 (1/1)

And then, suddenly, caht but a flash of it, for his pacings had carried hi back to the hotel that he saw, in a group of typical countenances--the lank and weary, the round and surprised, the lantern-jawed and s at once, and things so different It was that of a young uished by the heat, or worry, or both, but so so because he was so different Archer hung a moment on a thin thread offace--apparently that of son in such a setting He vanished in the stream of passersby, and Archer resumed his patrol

He did not care to be seen watch in hand within view of the hotel, and his unaided reckoning of the lapse of ti in reappearing, it could only be because she had ht Archer's apprehension rose to anguish

"If she doesn't co open again and she was at his side They got into the herdic, and as it drove off he took out his watch and saw that she had been absent just three minutes In the clatter of loose s that made talk impossible they bumped over the disjointed cobblestones to the wharf

Seated side by side on a bench of the half-e to say to each other, or rather that what they had to say communicated itself best in the blessed silence of their release and their isolation

As the paddle-wheels began to turn, and wharves and shipping to recede through the veil of heat, it see in the old faed to ask Mada that they were starting on soht never return But he was afraid to say it, or anything else that ht disturb the delicate balance of her trust in him In reality he had no wish to betray that trust There had been days and nights when the memory of their kiss had burned and burned on his lips; the day before even, on the drive to Portsh him like fire; but now that she was beside hi forth into this unknoorld, they seemed to have reached the kind of deeper nearness that a touch may sunder