Four bells—two o’clock in the morning. Anne cautiously opened the door of her cabin, and looked out into the alleyway. She was still fully dressed. She had not been in bed, save in the sense that face down on her bunk she had wrestled in the darkness with her problem from the moment almost that she had finally and in desperation made an excuse to get away from Captain Croon. She had heard the steward knock upon her door hours before; she had heard once or twice a footstep in the alleyway that she had recognized as Donald Lane’s, and, after midnight, had heard his door, which she knew to be the second one beyond her father’s, open and close. After that, for an hour, there had been other footsteps now and then, the opening and closing of other doors; but now it was still and quiet—except onl
