vacillations of innocence were apt to be bothersome, and besides, a
certain modest doubt of his own competency to make an original selection
had always made him prefer to confine his gallantries to the wives of
men of greater judgment than himself who had. But it suddenly occurred
to him that he had seen Stratton quickly slip off the boat at the last
landing stage. Ah! that was it; he had cast away and deserted her.
It was an old story. Jack smiled. But he was not greatly amused with
Stratton.

She was very pale, and seemed to be clinging to the network railing,
as if to support herself, although she was gazing fixedly at the yellow
glancing current below, which seemed to be sucked down and swallowed
in the paddle-box as the boat swept on. It certainly was a fascinating
sight--this sloping rapid, hurrying on to bury itself under the crushing
wheels. For a brief moment Jack saw how they would seize anything
floating on that ghastly incline, whirl it round in one awful revolution
of the beating paddles, and then bury it, broken and shattered out of
all recognition, deep in the muddy undercurrent of the stream behind
them.

She moved away presently with an odd, stiff step, chafing her gloved
hands together as if they had become stiffened too in her rigid grasp
of the railing. Jack leisurely watched her as she moved along the narrow
strip of deck. She was not at all to his taste,--a rather plump girl
with a rustic manner and a great deal of brown hair under her straw
hat. She might have looked better had she not been so haggard. When she
reached the door of the saloon she paused, and then, turning suddenly,
began to walk quickly back again. As she neared the spot where she had
been standing her pace slackened, and when she reached the railing she
seemed to relapse against it in her former helpless fashion. Jack became