I shall never forget that night at Enkhuisen, or the hotel.

Mr. Starr said it was no wonder Cities of the Zuider Zee died, if they were brought up on hotels like that.

Ours, apparently, had no one to attend to it, except one frightened rabbit of a boy, who appeared to be manager, hall porter, waiter, boots, and chambermaid in one; but when we had scrambled up a ladder-like stairway—it was almost as difficult as climbing a greased pole—we found decent rooms, and after that, things we wanted came by some mysterious means, we knew not how.

It was an adventure sliding down to dinner. Tibe fell from top to bottom, into a kind of black well, and upset Lady MacNairne completely. She said she hated Enkhuisen, and she thought it a dispensation of Providence that the sand had come and silted it up.

We had quite good things for dinner, but we ate in a dining-room with no fresh air, because the commercial travelers who sat at the same table, with napkins tucked under their chins, refused to have the windows open. Mr. van Buren wanted to defy them, but his chin looked so square, and the commercial travelers' eyes got so prominent, that I begged to have the windows left as they were.

There are churches to see in Enkhuisen, and a beautiful choir screen, but we hadn't the heart to visit them. We said perhaps we would go to-morrow, and added in our minds, "if the boat is safely in."

The Rabbit hardly knew what we meant when we asked for a private sitting-room, and evidently thought it far from a proper request.

To add to our melancholy, a thunder-storm came up after dinner, and lightning looped like coils of silver ribbon across the sky and back again, while thunder deadened the chimes of the Dromedary. Still there was no news, and at last Mr. van Buren went out in torrents of rain to the harbor.

We could not bear to sit in the dining-room where the commercial travelers—in carpet slippers—were smoking and discussing Dutch politics, so we clambered up the greased pole to Lady MacNairne's room, and talked about Philip the Second, and tortures, while Tibe growled at the thunder, and looked for it under furniture and in corners.

Nell was in such a black mood that she would have liked Philip to be tortured through all eternity, because of the horrible suffering he inflicted on the people of Holland; but I said the worst punishment would be for his soul to have been purified at death, that he might suddenly realize the fiendishness of his own crimes, see himself as he really was, and go on repenting throughout endless years.

It was not an enlivening conversation, and in the midst Mr. van Buren came to say that there were no tidings of Jonkheer Brederode and the boat.

Then Nell jumped up, very white, with shining eyes. "Can't we do something?" she asked.

Her cousin shook his head. "What is there we can do? Nothing! We must wait and hope that all is well."

"Are you anxious now?" asked Lady MacNairne.

"A little," he admitted.

"I don't know how to bear it," exclaimed Nell, with a choke in her voice.

I longed to comfort her; but her wretchedness seemed only to harden her cousin's heart.

He looked at her angrily. "It is late for you to worry," he reproached her. "If you had shown concern for Rudolph's safety this morning it would have been gracious; but——"

"Don't!" she said.

Just the one word, and not crossly, but in such a voice of appeal that he didn't finish his sentence.

We sat about awkwardly, and tried to speak of other things, but the talk would drift to our fears for the boat. Nell did not join in. She sat by the window, looking out and listening to the rain and wind, which made a sound like the purring of a great cat.

Ten o'clock came, and Lady MacNairne proposed that, as we could do nothing, we women should go to bed.

Then Nell spoke. "No," she said. "You and Phil can do as you like, and Cousin Robert and Mr. Starr; but I shall sit up."

Of course I told her I would sit up, too; and as Mr. van Buren said the commercial travelers had left the dining-room, he and Mr. Starr and Nell and I bade Lady MacNairne good-night, and went down.

The unfortunate Rabbit was in the act of putting out the light, but he was obliged to leave it for us, a necessity which distressed him.

By-and-by it was eleven, and the hotel was as silent as a hotel in a Dead City ought to be. We talked spasmodically. Sometimes we were still for many minutes, listening for sounds outside; and we could hear the scampering of mice behind the walls.

"I can't stand this," said Nell. "I'm going to the harbor."

"I will take you," replied Mr. van Buren.

"No, thank you," said Nell. "I'd rather you stopped with Phil. She has a cold, and mustn't get wet."

"May I go?" asked Mr. Starr.

"Yes," she said.

So they stole away through the sleeping house, and presently we heard the front door close. Mr. van Buren and I were alone together.

He was good about cheering me up, saying he had too much faith in his friend's courage and skill as a yachtsman to be very anxious, though the delay was odd.

Then, suddenly he broke out with a strange question.

"Would it hurt you if anything should happen to Rudolph Brederode?"

I was so surprised that I could hardly answer at first. Then I said that of course it would hurt me, for I liked and admired the Jonkheer, and considered him my friend.

"I have no right to ask," he went on, "but I do beg you to say if it is only as a friend you like Rudolph."

That startled me, for I was afraid things I had done might have been misunderstood, owing to the difference of ways in Holland.

"Why," I stammered, "are you going to warn me not to care for him, because he doesn't care for me? How dreadful!"

Nell's cousin Robert looked so pale, I was afraid he must be ill. He put up his hand and pushed his hair back from his forehead, and then began pacing about the room.

"Rudolph must care—he shall care, if you wish it," he said.

"Oh," I exclaimed, "I didn't mean it was dreadful if he didn't care; but if you thought I did."

He stopped walking and took one big step that brought him to me.

"You do not?"

"Of course not," said I; "not in that way."

Mr. van Buren caught both my hands, and pressed them so tightly, that I couldn't help giving a tiny squeak.

"Ah, I have hurt you!" he cried, and a strange expression came into his eyes. At least, it was strange that it should be for me, instead of Freule Menela, for it was almost—but no, I must have been mistaken, of course, in thinking it was like that. Anyway, it was a thrilling expression, and made my heart beat as fast as if I were frightened, though I think that wasn't exactly the feeling. I couldn't take my eyes away from his for a minute. We looked straight at each other; then, as if he couldn't resist, he kissed my hands one after the other—not with polite little Dutch kisses, but eager and desperate. As he did it, he gave a kind of groan, and before I could speak he muttered, "Forgive me!" as he rushed out of the room.

He must have almost run against Mr. Starr, for the next instant the "Mariner" (as Jonkheer Brederode calls him) came in, dripping wet.

There was I, all pink and trembling, and my voice did sound odd as I quavered out, "Where's Nell?"

"Gone to her room," said Mr. Starr, looking hard at me with his brilliant, whimsical eyes. "I was to tell you——"

With that, I burst into tears.

"Good gracious, poor angel! What is the matter?" he exclaimed, coming closer.

"I don't know," I sobbed. "But I'm not an angel. I do believe I'm a very—wicked girl."

"You, wicked? Why?"

"Because—I've got feelings I oughtn't to have."

"And that's why you're crying?"

"I'm not sure. But I just—can't help it."

"I wish I could do something," said he, quite miserably; and I could smell the wet serge of his sopping coat, though I couldn't see him, for my hands were over my eyes. I was ashamed of myself, but not as much ashamed as I would have been with any one else, because of the feeling I have that Mr. Starr would be so wonderfully nice and sympathetic to confide in. Not that I have anything to confide.

"Thank you, but you couldn't. Nobody could," I moaned.

"Not even Miss Van Buren?"

"Not now. It's too sad. Something seems to have come between us; I don't know what."

"Maybe that's making you cry?"

"No, I don't think so. Oh, I'm so unhappy!"

"You poor little dove! You don't mind my calling you that, do you?"

I shook my head. "No, it comforts me. It's so soothing after—after——"

"After what? Has anybody been beast enough——"

"Nobody's been a beast," I hurried to break in, "except, perhaps, me."

"Do tell me what's troubling you," he begged, and pulled my hands down from my face, not in the way Mr. van Buren had caught them, but very gently. I let him lead me to a sofa and dry my eyes with his handkerchief, because it seemed exactly like having a brother. It was just as nice to be sympathized with by him as I had often imagined it would be, and I liked it so much that I selfishly forgot he was soaked with rain, and ought to get out of his wet clothes.

"If I knew I would tell you," I said.

"You're worried about Alb—I mean Brederode?"

"Oh, now I know I'm a beast! I'd forgotten to ask about him, or the boats."

"You'd forgotten—by Jove! No, nothing heard or seen yet. I made Miss Van Buren come back at last. Had to say I was afraid of catching cold or she'd be there now. But see here, as it isn't Alb's fate that's bothering you, may I make a guess?"

"Yes, because you never could guess," said I.

"Is it—anything about van Buren?"

My face felt as if it was on fire. "Why, what should it be?" I asked.

"It might be, for instance, that you're sorry for him because he's engaged to a brute of a girl who's sure to make him miserable. You've got such a tender heart."

"You're partly right," I confessed. "Not that he's been complaining. He wouldn't do such a thing."

"No, of course not," said Mr. Starr.

"It's wonderful how that should have come into your mind," I said. "Please don't think me stupid to cry, but suddenly it came over me—such agonizing pity for him. I can't think he loves her."

"I'm sure he doesn't. I always wondered how he could, but to-night I saw that his engagement was making him wretched."

"You saw that?"

"Yes."

"You're so sympathetic," I couldn't help saying.

"Am I?"

"Yes. Do you know, I feel almost as if you were my brother?"

"Oh, that settles it! It's all up with me."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Whichever way I look I find nothing but sisters. I've had to promise myself to be a brother to Miss Van Buren, too, to-night."

"Don't you mean you promised her?"

"No, for I haven't done that yet. But it will probably come later."

"Would you rather not be our brother?" I hope I didn't speak reproachfully.

"We—ell, my first idea was that an aunt was the only relative I should have with me on this trip. Still, I'd have been delighted to be a brother to one of you, if I could only have kept the other up my sleeve, as you might say, to be useful in a different capacity."

"You love to puzzle me," I said.

"There are lots of things I love about you—as a brother," he answered with a funny sigh. And I wasn't sure whether he was poking fun at me or not. "But, as for Miss Van Buren, why couldn't she look upon van Buren as a brother?"

"He's her cousin, and she doesn't love him much," I explained.

"Alb, then."

"She doesn't love him at all."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Oh, certain," I assured him quite earnestly.

"She's sick with anxiety about him anyhow. I had to comfort her."

"That's because she feels guilty for being so disagreeable," I said; "and she would of course suffer dreadful remorse, poor girl, if he were drowned looking after her boat, as I pray he won't be."

I began to understand now. Poor Mr. Starr was jealous of his friend, the Jonkheer.

"Well, I wish she'd love me a little, then, as there's nobody else."

"Do you know, I shouldn't be a bit surprised if she does," I almost whispered. "Perhaps that's what's making her so queer."

"I wish I could think so," sighed Mr. Starr. But he didn't look as radiant as one might have expected. He seemed more startled than delighted. "Anyhow," he went on, "you're a dove-hearted angel, and it's all fixed up that I'm to be a brother to you, whatever other relationships I may be engaged in. I must try and get to work, and earn my salt by making you happy."

"I don't feel to-night as if I could ever be happy again," I told him. "The world seems such a sad place to be in."

"I'll see what I can do, anyhow," said he. "Would it make you happier if van Buren were happier?"

"Oh yes," I exclaimed. "He's been so kind to Nell and me. But I'm afraid nothing can be done. An unfortunate marriage for a young man of—of an affectionate nature is such a tragedy, isn't it?"

"Awful. But it may never come off."

"I don't see what's to prevent it," I said. And the memory of that last look on Mr. van Buren's face came up so vividly that tears stood in my eyes.

"I've thought of something that might," said he; and I was burning to know what when the door opened, and Nell came in without her coat and hat.

She eyed Mr. Starr reproachfully. "Oh, you promised to ask Robert to go back with you to the pier," she said. "Has he gone by himself?"

"I don't—" Mr. Starr had begun guiltily, still sitting beside me on the sofa, when her cousin appeared on the threshold. He was very pale, and looked so grave that I thought some bad news must have come. Nell thought so, too, for she took a step toward him as he paused in the open doorway——

"You've—heard nothing?" she stammered.

"Poor Rudolph," he began; but at the sound of such a beginning she put out her hands as if to ward off a ghost, and her face was so death-like I was frightened lest she was going to faint. Then, suddenly, it changed, and lit up. I never saw her so beautiful as she was at that moment. She gave a cry of joy, and the next instant our handsome brown skipper had pushed pass Mr. van Buren at the door, and had both her hands in his.

He was dripping with water. Even his hair was so wet that I saw for the first time it was curly.

"Oh, I'm so glad, so glad!" faltered Nell. "Robert said 'poor Rudolph!' and I thought——"

"I was only going to say poor Rudolph had had a bad night of it," broke in Mr. van Buren; but I don't think either of them heard.

"Were you anxious about me? Did you care?" asked Jonkheer Brederode.

That seemed to call Nell back to herself. "I was anxious about 'Lorelei,'" she said. "You've brought her back all right?"

"Yes, and 'Waterspin,'" he answered, with the joy gone out of his voice. "We had rough weather to fight against, but we've come to no harm." He turned to me wistfully. "Had you a thought to spare for the skipper once or twice to-day, Miss Rivers?"

I was so grieved for him that, before I knew what I was saying, I exclaimed——

"Why, I've thought of nothing else!"

I put out my hand to him, and he shook it as if he never meant to let it go.

"How good you are," he said warmly.

And I didn't dare look at Mr. van Buren, for the idea came to me that maybe he would not now believe what I had told him a little while ago.

* * * * * *

This morning I scolded Nell before our chaperon for her coldness to Jonkheer Brederode, when he had done so much for her.

"How could you," I asked, "when the poor fellow seemed so pleased to think you cared? It was cruel."

"I didn't want him to think I cared," Nell answered.

"Dear girl, you were quite right," said Lady MacNairne. Then she laughed. "He hoped to make our Phil jealous, I suppose, for his real thought seems to have been for her, doesn't it?"

Neither of us answered. I quite fancied last night that she had been wrong about those surmises of hers; but now, when she put it in this way, I wasn't so sure, after all.