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"That hardly expresses it," he returned. "So many things have

happened to-day that I expect anything now."

"Come, let us go in," she said, and led him through a doorway

that connected with an adjoining room. In the center of it was a

small table laid with linen and furnished with glittering silver

and glass. "Are you hungry?" she asked.

"You know fishermen well enough not to ask that," he laughed, and

they sat down. Elsa did not make any tax upon his conversational

powers. It was Code himself who first put a pertinent question.

"I take for granted your being here and your living like this,"

he said; "but I am bursting with curiosity. How do you happen to

be in this schooner?"

"It is my schooner; why shouldn't I be in it?" she smiled.

"Yours?" He was mystified. "But why should you have a vessel like

this? You never used one before that I know of."