140 The Light That Failed A should told him that it was not seemly to charge of the mail-bag incline. He reached the pier as the steamer began to move off, and he followed her with his heart. “And there’s nothing — nothing in the wide world — to keep us apart except her obstinacy. These Calais night-boats are much too small. I'll get Torp to write to the papers about it. She’s beginning to pitch already.” Maisie stood where Dick had left her till she heard a little gasping cough at her elbow. The red-haired girl’s eyes were alight with cold flame. “He kissed you!” she said. “How could you let him, when he wasn’t anything to you? How dared you to take a kiss from him? Oh, Maisie, let’s go to the ladies’ cabin. I’m sick, — deadly sick.” “We aren’t into open water yet. Go down, dear, and Ill stay here. I don’t like the smell of the engines. ... Poor Dick! He deserved one, — only one. But I didn’t think he’d frighten me so.” Dick returned to town next day just in time for lunch, for which he had telegraphed. To his disgust, there were only empty plates in the studio. He lifted up his voice like the bears in the fairy-tale, and Torpenhow entered, looking guilty. “H’sh!” said he. “Don’t make such a noise. I took it. Come into my rooms, and I'll show you why.” Dick paused amazed at the threshold, for on Torpenhow’s sofa lay a girl asleep and breathing heavily. The little cheap sailor-hat, the blue-and-white dress, fitter for June than for February, dabbled with mud at the skirts, the jacket trimmed with imitation Astrakhan and ripped at the shoulder-seams, the one-and-eleven penny umbrella, and, above all, the disgraceful condition of the kid-topped boots, declared all things. “Oh, I say, old man, this is too bad! You mustn’t