As John Everett was returning from the city that night, and many nights thereafter, he found himself dwelling with singular intentness on the piquant face of his sister's English maid; it seemed to look out at him wistfully from the damp folds of his evening paper, and to haunt the twilight seclusion of the ferryboat deck upon which he was accustomed to tramp many a breezy mile in his daily trips across New York's spacious harbor.
John Everett was a graduate of Yale and a budding lawyer, employed in a down-town law office. He had unhesitatingly expended every cent of a slender patrimony in obtaining his education, and at present was in the hopeful position of a strong swimmer striking out unhampered for a distant shore. He fully expected to reach that shore—some time; but a man swimming for his life in the deep and perilous current of an untried profession has no business to dwell upon the alluring vision of any woman's face. That the woman of his shy boyhood dreams was waiting for him on that far-off shore, he felt reasonably sure; but even this conviction could not prevent him from feeling sorry for Jane. She was struggling in deep water, too, and would she—could she reach the shore in safety, unless some one——
"I am a fool!" John Everett told himself vigorously, and squared his broad shoulders to the bracing ocean wind, which blew damp and salt from the vasty deeps outside the Hook.
Half an hour later he came upon Jane at the corner, whither she had been sent to post a letter. There were half-dried tears sparkling upon her long lashes, and her mouth drooped pathetically at the corners.
"What is the trouble, Jane?" he couldn't help asking; his blue eyes said more.
Jane ignored both. "There is nothing the matter, sir," she said icily, and drew back to let him pass.
CHAPTER X
More than a fortnight had passed and Jane was still engaged in "doing second work" in the modest detached villa, otherwise known as the residence of Mr. and Mrs. James Livingstone Belknap. Toward the end of her first week of service she had received a letter from her good friend, Bertha Forbes, urging her to return to England at once in the company of an acquaintance who was to be sent across on customhouse business. "I will arrange for the transportation," added Miss Forbes generously; "I want to feel that you are safe at home with your family once more."