The Cryptogram

e rocky gates of Newfoundland, and thence up the coast of Labrador to Hudson Straits. For the most part wind and weather favored us, yet it was a matter of six weeks before we got into the b

ll show, was along the

nd popular. I did not see very much of him, for he and Captain Rudstone became boon companions and stuck well together. It was the same with the captain. Indeed, he seemed to take pains to avoid me, except when others were present, thereby causing me some perplexity and chagrin. And if w

s. Secluded in some nook of the deck, we would talk for hours, or I would read aloud from one of the few volumes that the skipper's cabin afforded. She told me

nt of this fact or would not believe it. He had higher matrimonial views for his son, and so, in order to get Miss Hatherton out of England, he hatched the plot that resulted in the poor girl making her father a sacred promise that she would go to the Canadas and marry Griffith

who had hitherto felt but contempt for all womankind, suddenly discovered that I was a slave to the great passion. It was a sharp awakening, and it destroyed my peace of mind. To me Flora Hatherton was a divinity, a goddess. It gave me the keenest torture to thin

I was hiding them. It was a hard task, for every word or look that the girl gave me seemed to turn my blood to fire. That she was indifferent to me-that she regarded me only as a friend-I was convinced. I was a youngster and inexperienced, and so I was blind to the girl's pretty blushes, to the averting of her eyes when

bay, and in the morning we expected to sight the marshy shores that lay about Fort York. Flora was in her cabin. She had seemed depressed all day and I remembered that an hour before, when the skipper told her how near we were to land, she had smi

shall have dropped anchor under the walls of the

r our arrival so soon. We took an earlier ship, you

you. I take it you will be glad of a few days of grace. But m

I cried, ruf

therton," he answ

y face g

curtly. "I will thank you to mind

es you," he r

believe i

ception. But it is just as I said-the girl returns your affection. What a

me time I detected a ring of truth in what he had said. It flashed upon

riffith Hawke is my superior officer. I am acting under his orders, and I dare not b

ptain, "to help this innocent girl, whose

th, I had no answer ready to my lips. And just then Hira

claimed. "There's a storm brewing, and we are perilously n

r's words, or to give a second thought to the prophecy of a storm. I left the two