"Nothing," he said; and he added to himself, "No, it is absurd. It
could not be." The idea that it could have been Dan Waterman who had
set the detectives to follow him seemed too grotesque for
consideration. "It was nothing but a chance shot," he said to Lucy,
"but you must be careful. He is a dangerous man."

"And I am powerless to punish him!" whispered Lucy, after a pause.

"It seems to me," said Montague, "that you are very well out of it.
You will know better next time; and as for punishing him, I fancy
that Nature will attend to that. He is getting old, you know; and
they say he is morose and wretched."

"But, Allan!" protested Lucy. "I can't help thinking what would have
happened to me if you had not come on board! I can't help thinking
about other women who must have been caught in such a trap. Why,
Allan, I would have been equally helpless--no matter what he had
done!"

"I am afraid so," said he, gravely. "Many a woman has discovered it,
I imagine. I understand how you feel, but what can you do about it?
You can't punish men like Waterman. You can't punish them for
anything they do, whether it is monopolising a necessity of life and
starving thousands of people to death, or whether it is an attack
upon a defenceless woman. There are rich men in this city who make
it their diversion to answer advertisements and decoy young girls. A
stenographer in my office told me that she had had over twenty
positions in one year, and that she had left every one because some
man in the office had approached her."