"No need to shave this off now."

Gerald was standing next morning in front of his dressing-glass, and referred to his pointed beard.

He had intended shaving as a disguise in case of any bother with the now dead dentist. He had not seen what could arise—what the dentist would dare to do—but the detective's failure to go back for his prisoner would naturally excite suspicion in the dentist's breast.

Now—well, that breast was cold.

"There is no doubt," thought Gerald, "the doctor and the dentist between them did for Josh Todd. Both are now done for. So far as Josh Todd's murder is concerned, that is avenged. A restoration of the money"—he had the bank notes in front of him as he spoke—"to its rightful owner will end the whole thing.

"And," he thought, with a smile of pleasure playing round his mouth, "it will end up like a story too, with a marriage with Tessie—and, please God, a live happy ever after."

He inserted the notes in an envelope. Then in another, and another, and ultimately in a piece of brown paper, which he tied round with twine.

He went to the head of the stairs, and called out to the landlady, would she lend him a needle and cotton?

The maid of all work came up with it, and Gerald set about using the same.

He took off his coat and waistcoat, and ripped the lining of the latter from the cloth; pushing the envelope of money up, he sewed the lining down again.

"That's on my left side," said Gerald, "over the heart. I put that waistcoat on now"—he did so—"and it shall never leave me till I hand the money over to old Depew. I'll sleep in that waistcoat, and never, night or day, shall it be out of my touch."

He looked up the trains and boat sailings, booked his passage, and arranged to step on board a liner the next day on his way to America—on his way to the girl he loved.

The next day he settled with his landlady. Then he took an omnibus to Euston, sitting on the top of it with his bag on his knees, for his exchequer was running low, and it did not admit of cab hire. By tram he went to the dock, and stepped aboard the vessel which was to bear him to the land of the free.

He had gone to the expense in town of booking both berths in his second class cabin. It left him almost without a pound in his pocket, but he had too much in value about him to run any risk.

He had provided against any tampering with the bolts or locks of his cabin door by purchasing one of the bell door alarms which fix into the floor, and at the slightest pressure of the door rings a loud alarm.

He did not fear for a moment that any attempt to rob him would be made; he simply took no risks.

Traveling second class, no one would suppose him in possession of nineteen thousand pounds, and as he had made up his mind that the package should never leave his breast, he felt quite safe.

On board the boat, after she sailed, he kept very much to his cabin. He did not make many acquaintances. He occasionally chatted and smoked with a poor looking, club-footed old man, who was a fellow-passenger.

He was moved to this by the extreme sensitiveness of the man; indeed, a veiled pity prompted him to take notice of the only creature on the ship who seemed to be without an acquaintance.

He was surprised when he found from conversation what a mine of information he had struck; that his companion was a well-informed, educated, and apparently wealthy man.

"Yes," the other said, "I suppose you are surprised to find me traveling second class. I am extremely sensitive. I know with this hideous deformity, a hump back and a club foot, that people talk of me in pitying tones behind my back.

"I don't want their pity," he continued fiercely; "I only want to be let alone, unnoticed. With you, it is different. You are the only man on this ship who looks at me without conveying an impression that you would like to pat me on the back and say, 'Poor old fellow.' Damn their pity!"

Gerald laughed heartily. The man was speaking the truth, he knew.

His almost toothless gums caused chin and nose to come together in a manner strikingly suggestive of Punch, and he spoke with a squeak.

His nose even was deformed, and a swelling on one side of it below the bridge added to the curious appearance of the face. A bald head, with a fringe round it of snow white hair, completed the grotesqueness.

In the more crowded second class cabin, the man escaped notice better than he would have done in the saloon.

So it came about that during the voyage Gerald and the club-footed hunchback passed many hours together.

Gerald learned much, for there was scarcely a subject on which his companion was not well posted.

The nights were particularly pleasant, for the moon was at the full, and, well wrapped up, they usually spent the after dinner time on deck, while the majority of the passengers were more sociably engaged in the way of games or music.

At one meal the subject of moon blindness had cropped up, and many curious anecdotes were told anent it—anecdotes more or less truthful, after the manner of shipboard stories.

Afterwards, on deck, Gerald's companion continued the conversation. At table he rarely spoke. He said:

"It is quite true. Moon blindness is a terrible thing. The great relief about it is the knowledge that the sight comes back.

"I remember, many years ago, abroad, being foolish enough to insist on sleeping on an open deck. It was, of course, terribly hot weather, or even I—young as I was then—should never have been so foolish. I lay on my back on the deck—on the back is the only comfortable way in which to lie on a hard couch, by the by—and when I woke I could not see my hand before me.

"Fright! God bless me! I believe I went mad."

"Enough to make you."

"The captain reassured me by laughing at me. It seemed a cruel thing to do, but I have since thought it saved me from going mad. I have always feared blindness so—I have always had weak eyes."

"I notice that you are never without colored glasses."

"That is so. I cannot see a yard away without them.

"Well, on this occasion of which I am speaking, there was no ship's doctor aboard. The captain gave me an ointment to use which he told me would restore my sight in five or six days."

"Did it?"

"In that time my sight became as good as ever it was. As to the ointment—well, the captain afterwards told me that was a mere trick. That nothing but time cured moon blindness, and that he had given me the fat as an ointment merely to keep me busy."

"Smart."

"Yes. There was another effect it had on a fellow-passenger—who slept as I had slept. He got up from the deck, felt his way to his berth, and lay there unconscious for nearly a day and a half.

"When he recovered, he had not the faintest recollection of even lying down on the deck, and was amazed to find himself in his clothes in his bunk."

"Curious."

"So I thought. Don't light your pipe—try one of these cigars. They are from a box I have just opened. I want your opinion of them."

"Thanks—want the light?"

"No, I won't smoke any more to-night. I think"—a yawn—"I'll be getting to bed. Good-night."

"Good-night. I shan't turn in just yet; as I've lighted this cigar, I'll smoke it out."

"Give me your opinion of it in the morning. Good-night."

"Good-night."

Gerald sat on in the moonlight smoking, and when in the morning he found himself in his berth with his clothes on, he thought of the story of the moon struck man, thought he had been affected in the same way, and was thankful that he had awakened at his regular hour with nothing worse than a headache.

He determined never to go to sleep on deck again while the moon was shining.