The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1942-04-09
Protected? What situations9"


his face. "Murder?" she gasped.
what on earth are you talking
about?"
What do you think my brothers
would have done if they had found
out that you were with James Wayne
when he died?"
"But-but-"
"Oh, know you didn't mean to
harm him. Even without the-call
1t excitement-of seeing you, I dare
say he wouldn't have lasted another
twenty-four hours. But you know
how Willard and Ernest would have
seized upon the fact that you were
with him-and sought to conceal it.
The investigation would have been
an ugly and uncomfortable thing"
II with him?" Karen repeated in
credulously. why, Dick"
"You see," Dick said, you're not
honest with me even yet. Who did
you think picked up the broken lei?
Tsura? Dear God! I'll never smell
ginger flowers again without re-
membering-"
Lei? What lei?"
1.-THE lei gave you, that brought
to your room, the night my uncle
died. The lei that you wore when
you went to see him. The lei that
broke, and still lay scattered all over
the floor when I found him sitting
there, dead"
"You mean-you mean-you've
thought all this time"
II picked up the lei; I opened the
windows, and let the wind sweep
away the smell of ginger flowers.
and said nothing. l even respected
your own silence, and said nothing
to you.'
II think" Karen said, ST could
have forgiven anything in the world
but that. This is too much, Dick"
"You see," Dick said, "I believed
in you'll believed in you as 1
haven't believed in anything since /
can remember. God help me. be-
lieve in you yet! But I can't any
longer believe that you are for me-"
mo" Karen said, her voice
strange and shaky, mot for you.
Never for you again."
Again? You never were!"
when you came for me, and I
ran away with you, from the Seal,
/ belonged to you as much as I'll
ever belong to anybody. More, per-
haps. Even when your-when Lii
ua turned up in your cabin, in that
savage, half-naked rig, was dis
gusted and hurt, but I would have
got over it, think. Only-I didn't
know you then"
'You think you know me now?"
"As well as I ever care to, Dick"
When the Holokai was anchored
again in Alakoa's little bay, Dick
Wayne had Karen rowed back to the
Seal, from which he had taken her
such a little while before. They
had been gone less than two hours.
yet the circumstances under which
he had brought her to the Holokai
from the Seal seemed so far away
that they might have existed in an
other world.
AS she left the Holokai he offered
her a steadying hand, to help her
into the small boat. but she stepped
down lightly without his help, hardly
glancing at him. They had nothing
to say to each other as she left.
The Holokai's boat had hardly left
her side when Alakoa's shore launch
put out from the dock, bringing
the doctor for whom Dick had ra-
diced. The same Japanese physi-
clan who had attended James
Wayne came aboard the Holo-
kai briskly, looking as gravely wor-
ried as his round moon Of a face
would permit. Dick took him below
at once.
Lilua was resting more quietly,
now, under the detachedly watchful
eyes of the Chinese mess boy and
the Filipino cook.
"This girl has been stabbed"
Dick told DR.. Shimazu shortly.
VERY little has been done. Don't
leave her until she can properly be
moved"
The japanese, evidently interest
ed by the notion that Dick might
have stabbed the girl himself, gave
Dick Wayne shrewd and curious
look, but without learning anything;
and Dick went on deck.
Garrett Waterson's vessel was
standing in by now. Already the
mournful blasts of her whistle were
calling for a pilot. Dick Wayne
dropped oversize into the launch,
drove it out of the bay in short
cut through the boil of the break
ers, and went aboard the Sarah.
A stocky Norwegian with curly
brown beard-his name was Stahl-
quist-met him at the rail, and
paced beside Dick as he went to the
wheel.
might as well kick her on in,"
Stahlquist said gloomily. 'The Old
Mans in another fever siege;
wouldn't know you probably, even if
you could get him awake"
s'How longs he sick?"
cit comes off and on. You know
how he is. He'll be all right when
he wakes up. Probably be four or
five hours; then he'll be himself
for while, and raising hell. | don't
know what we're coming to"
Dick took the wheel, signaled his
engines, and snaked the Sarah in
through the coral. He anchored her
between the Holokai and the Seal.
You're in for it," Stahlquist en-
couraged him. "All the way up, the
Old Mans been raving and cussing
at you for putting out with the Holo-
kai without no orders"
"When he wakes up," Dick said,
"tell him to keep his shirt on. There