hand."

Phil grinned cheerfully as he began to dip his paddle, interest quickened. It was a neat sidestepping of his inconsiderate attempt to scrutinize her. She had taken the first trick.

"You do yourself an injustice, madam. Are you usually so careful when you are careless?"

"You have not told me your name yet," she reminded him, apparently more at ease now that she knew he intended to paddle her across the bay.

"My name? It's an Indian name—Watha—Hy. A. Watha, at your service, and I am very fond of canoeing. What's yours?"

"You need hardly ask that, Mr. Hiawatha, when you knew my sister,
Minnie, so well," she laughed. "I am Mary Ha-ha!"

"You don't say!" chuckled Kendrick in appreciation. "The original little Merry Ha-Ha, eh?—Little Laughing-Gas!"

"If you are Hiawatha, why are you using a paddle?" she pursued. "I always understood from the Poet that all you had to do was to guide your canoe with your thoughts."

"Not when they're travelling in a circle. But this looks more like 'Blind Man's Buff' than 'Ring-Around-A-Rosy,' don't you think? Or are you trying to play 'Tag' with me? Well, you're 'It' anyway," he said, dropping all hint of banter in his tone. "I'd advise you to meet a few straight questions with straight answers. First, who is this Joe person you were expecting to do the canoeing for you?"

"My husband."

"And the people in the launch?"

"How should I know who they were? By what right do you ask me that?" she demanded.

"The circumstances are somewhat unusual, madam, you must admit," Kendrick reminded her sharply. "Do you wish me to play safe by handing you over to the police?"

"Police? My Good Gracious me! What crime have I committed?"

"That would be a matter for official enquiry. It may be that you and your husband are in the habit of wandering about the Island in a thick fog at two o'clock in the morning—picking daisies for the sick kiddies over at the Children's Home, I presume—but, to be perfectly frank with you, I doubt it. Besides, there is the little matter of the launch."

"Why are you so interested in that launch?"

"Because I happen to be the nephew of my uncle who happens to own it and to have left it in my charge during his absence," said Kendrick deliberately. "I'm laying the cards face up, madam. The launch is the property of Honorable Milton Waring, of whom you may have heard. Undoubtedly it has been stolen."

He was not prepared for the laughter with which his unknown passenger greeted this bold announcement. He knew she was trying to smother her mirth, but it finally broke all bounds. A very musical laugh it was, very pleasant to hear.

"Oh, please forgive me," she gasped finally. "It is very rude of me, I know; but—you said you were the Honorable Milt's nephew—" Again she laughed in spite of herself.

"You know my uncle?" he asked eagerly.

"I read the papers," she said evasively. "Everybody knows a public man."

"I'm laying the cards face up, madam," repeated Kendrick solemnly. "My name is Kendrick—Philip Kendrick. I was on my way home when you—well, shanghaied me. Won't you meet me half way by equal frankness, so that we may avoid—well, any unpleasantness?"

"You mean—?" She had stopped laughing.

"That unless you answer legitimate questions I shall be forced to hand you over to the police."

"I warn you that you would regret it," she said quietly.

"Very much," agreed Kendrick readily. "I would be sorry to cause you any inconvenience; but surely you see how impossible it is for me to avoid being inquisitive under the circumstances. Are you going to be frank with me or not?"

She did not answer him immediately and he smiled to himself as he paddled in silence. For, if the truth must be told, Mr. Philip Kendrick was enjoying himself immensely. He had only the sound of her voice from which to draw deductions; but the cultured tones of it and the lilt of her low laughter bespoke an education and refinement with which he failed to reconcile the idea that she was a lady burglar. Yet——

He stopped paddling to listen intently. Several times now he had thought he heard a sound off in the darkness behind him. It came again—a slight hollow sound, as of a paddle scraping against a canoe. They were being followed. Had the girl heard it, too? He waited for the wail of the fog-horn to die away—and found her speaking.

"—frank with you, Mr. Kendrick," she was saying. "The circumstances are less extraordinary than they appear to you. My—husband and I were at a party at a friend's house on the Island. We paddled over in a canoe and Joe went ahead of me to locate it. In the dark I must have missed the spot where he was waiting for me and when you came along so silently and so close to the bank I naturally thought it was Joe. Ridiculously simple, you see."

"You have forgotten the launch," prompted Kendrick severely.

"I know nothing about the launch," she denied with resentment. "When I heard those people coming I thought it was some of the guests from the party who had said they would race us home. Will you please paddle on, Mr. Kendrick. It is damp and chilly in this fog and I am naturally in a hurry to get home."

He laughed with skepticism, but plied his paddle again. He was not as concerned about the launch as he pretended, of course; at the worst it probably meant that Stinson had been entertaining some of his friends on the sly. He had no intention of handing his mysterious passenger to the police. But was he to let her laugh at him and disappear unchallenged into the fog out of which she had come?

Phil Kendrick's experience with the opposite sex was very limited, he had to confess. He had been too completely absorbed in athletics to afford girls more than passing attention. Those of his social set—those he had met—had failed to impress him. One or two of them were attractive enough in a general way, he realized; some were amusing to him and some very very tedious. It was a new experience to find himself actually interested in a girl—or rather, her voice! He wished he could get a look at her till he remembered the poor showing he would make with his blackened eye. Then he was thankful for the darkness.

Phil planned to land her at the Queen City Yacht Club at the foot of York St., or at the Canoe Club; either would provide an easy landing. They must be well across the bay now; but it was hard to say just where they would come in. Ordinarily he could have steered by the illuminated dial of the City Hall clock and the spire of St. James'; but the fog obliterated all landmarks.

They were both very damp from exposure to the mist, but it is doubtful if either of them was aware of it. He made several further attempts to discover her identity without avail; at every turn she evaded him skillfully and it was beginning to look as if she would step ashore and vanish into the fog without leaving behind her a single clue for him to follow. This illusiveness was an added spur to his desire to know this girl. He did not believe that she was a married woman at all. It was a conclusion which seemed to be justified by her elaborate precautions to make him think otherwise. Because of some foolish notion of the conventions she intended to go as she had come, taking advantage of the fog to write down the night's adventure in a book which must be closed to him for all time and forgotten.

Deliberately Phil held back the