"
"Once aboard the lugger and the girl is free!" she quoted. "No, no.
You don't understand. It isn't so simple as that. If it was merely a
question of getting away, do you think I would be afraid? It's more
than that. It's all in myself, all here." She struck her bosom with a
white clenched fist. "It is something in myself--it's something I've
got to settle all by myself. You must not try to interfere. Win or
lose, no one can help me--no one. That is why I must go back--though I
am afraid."
The Egret had crept past the length of the ditcher, disdaining to
approach its grimy hull with her immaculate sides. She was approaching
the squat little tug. Suddenly the girl held out her hand.
"Good-by," she said.
"Good-by?" he stammered, "Surely it isn't good-by?"
The Egret's starboard ladder was gently chaffing the tug's fender.
"It isn't good-by!" he said.
"I am afraid it is." She watched him as he went over the side onto the
tug's deck. The Egret, as if freed from a burden, shot sharply
forward. Annette leaned far over the rail.
"Good-by," she murmured. "Good-by!"
XXVI
"Mr. Payne, I take it?"
Roger turned to face the speaker, a tall, hawk-nosed man whose sallow,
leathery face was set in the lines of the hard worker.
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