Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1910-04-06

very .neat-Iooking English stewardess
I'm a smart white cap. Lady Maud was
unusually silent, but she smiled pleas
antly at what Margaret said, and the
latter made up her mind to drown her
anger against Logotheti, and at the
same time be avenged on him, In an
orgy of luxurious comfort, sea-air, ana
sunshine. The capacity of perfectly
healthy and successful singer for en-
joying everything, from halfpenny
bun and a drive in hanson to mil
nonaire's yacht and the most expen-
sive fat of the land, or sea, has never
been measured. And II they do have
terrible fits of temper now and then,
who shall blame them? They are al
ways sorry for it, because 1t is bad
for the voice.
Mr.. Van Torp reached his quarters,
and prepared to scrub and dress CON-
fortably after week at Bayreuth and
a railroad journey.
Lady Maud did not begin to dress at
once. as there was plenty of time be-
fore dinner; she left the stewardess to
unpack her things, and came out upon
the sfx-foot gangway outside her cab
in door to breathe the air, for It was
warm. The city lay half a mile away
in the afterglow of the sunset.
But she felt none of that healthy
pleasure which lovely sight naturally
gave her She was at crisis of her
life, and the exquisite evening scene
was the battlefield of a coming strug-
gle, with herself, or with another, she
hardly knew In half an hour, or in
an hour, at most, she was to sit at Ia
BILE with a man she fully believed to
be the husband for whom she had
been wearing mourning, out of mere
decency, but with the profound inward
satisfaction of being free.
She had already come to the conclu-
sion that if Kralinsky was really Lev
en-, the latter had seized the opportu-
nifty offered him by his own supposed
death to disappear from st. Peters
burg, and had taken another name.
Leven had been a ruined man when
he had tried to divorce her; when he
died, or disappeared, he left nothing
but debts, which were extinguished
with him, for no one attempted TO
make his widow responsible for them,
since there was no estate and she had
no fortune beyond the allowance her
father made her. Lord Creedmore was
far from being rich peer, too, and
what he gave her was not much, al
though it would more than suffice for
her simple wants, now that she in
tended to live with him again.
But If Leven had not been killed and
had turned into Kralinsky, he now
had plenty of ready money, though
1t was not easy to guess how he had
obtained possession OF a quantity of
valuable Asiatic rusieS within the few
weeks that had elapsed between his
supposed destruction by the bomb and
the date of Van Torp's transaction
with him in New York. That was q
mystery. So was his possible acquaint-
ance, or connection. with the eastern
girl who was looking for him, If there
was a shadow of truth in Logotheti' s
story. Lady Maud did not believe
there was, and she felt morally sure
that the tale had evolved itself out of
the Greeks fertile brain, as a fantas-
tic explanation of his atrocious con-
duct.
While she was thinking over these
matters and rehearsing in her
thoughts the scene that was before
her, she saw a gondola making
straight for the yacht across the fast
fading green of the lagoon that lay
between the vessel and the Piazzetta.
It came nearer, and she drew back
from the rail against her cabin door,
he CHI IF hn Il a
deck, which extended over the gang
way and was supported by stanchions,
as on an ocean liner. The Lancashire
Lass, with her single yellow funnel,
her one short signal mast, her turret-
shaped wheel-house and her generally
business-like appearance, looked more
like a cross between a fast modern
cruiser and an ocean greyhound"
than like a private yacht. She even
had a couple of quick-firing guns
mounted just above her rail.
Lady Maud looked at the gondola,
and as it came still nearer, she saw
that it brought only one passenger,
and that he had fair beard. She
quietly opened her cabin door, and
went in to dress for dinner.
Meanwhile Mr.. Van Torp had com
pleted his toilet, and sent for the cap
tain.
81 suppose you're ready at any mo-
ment, captain?" inquired the million
aire.
Eyes, sir The pilot is on board,
and the gentleman you expected is
just coming alongside"
Then you can start now" said the
owner, after a moments thought.
Where are we bound, sir?"
"Oh, we'll. I don't know. 1 wanted
to say few words about that, cap