By the World Forgot: A Double Romance of the East and West

Stephanie smiled faintly.

"If Derrick is dead none of us here is ever going to forget it. Neither Mr. Harnash, nor I, not even you."

"I fail to see any responsibility attaching to me."

"No, but there will be some."

"Oh, will there?"

"So far as intent goes we can absolve ourselves, but so far as consequences are concerned we shall have to expiate our wickedness."

"Oh, Stephanie, for God's sake don't say that of yourself," Harnash burst forth.

"I must. And we can expiate it together. We can help each other."

"Do you mean that you will actually marry me?"

"Of course," said the girl. "How could you for a moment think otherwise? I mean what I say when I assume part of the blame."

"And so you have settled it without me, have you?" asked her father.

"No. We are going to settle it this way with your approval and consent."

"And I am to give my daughter to a man who would administer knock-out drops to a friend and shanghai him on the eve of his wedding and appropriate that friend's promised wife?"

"It is just, sir," said Harnash bitterly. "Think what you do," he continued, turning to the girl with a gesture of renunciation.

"No," answered Stephanie to her father. "You are giving your daughter to a man who, however he sinned, and your daughter doesn't presume to pass condemnation upon him as she might were she not a party to it, has frankly and openly acknowledged his transgression and expressed himself willing to take the consequences."

"Humph," said the old man, a flicker of a smile appearing on his iron face.

"Remember, he might have kept silent."

"Well," said Maynard, "I believe you are right. There is good stuff in you, Harnash, and your unforced, voluntary confession shows it. I don't think you'll administer knock-out drops to anybody again, and eventually I suppose you'll get Stephanie, but there are conditions."

"You couldn't impose any conditions that I would not gladly meet."

"I was coming to those myself," said the girl.

"Oh, you had thought of this, too, had you?"

"Certainly."

"What are they?"

"First of all there must be no public mention by any of us of the possible fate of Derrick until we are satisfied that he is dead."

"Certainly not," said old Maynard.

The assent of Harnash was obviously not necessary to that.

"That's where you come in, father-what is the legal term? – as an accessory after the fact to what we have done."

The old man laughed a little.

"Clever, clever," he murmured, "my own daughter."

"The next condition is that we must satisfy ourselves beyond peradventure that Derrick is dead before any marriage."

"That is a harder proposition," said the old man.

"Because," went on the girl, "I told George when I supposed Mr. Beekman was alive and would turn up some time that I would never marry him until I had got a release from Derrick's own lips, and as long as there is a chance that he is alive that condition holds."

"I'm so glad that I can look forward to getting you at any time under any circumstances," said Harnash fervently, "that I accede gladly to any conditions that you may lay down."

"And how will you settle the affair if by any good fortune we succeed in finding Beekman and he refuses to consent and wishes to hold you to your terms?" asked Maynard thoughtfully. "You don't seem to have counted on that."

Harnash and Stephanie looked at each other with dismay.

"And how if he wants to kill Harnash, as he would have a perfect right to do, for his part in the-er-deplorable transaction?" continued the old man relentlessly.

"I'll take whatever he wishes to give me," said Harnash. "I'll tell him myself, if we are fortunate enough to see him, and I don't believe when he learns everything that he will want to claim as his wife a woman who loves some one else."

"I am sure he will not," said Stephanie.

The girl's father nodded.

"I guess you have it right, but we needn't worry about that now. The first thing is to find out whether he is really dead."

"We must set about that at once," said Stephanie.

"We have already taken steps to that end," said Harnash. "I have cabled Smithfield to ship the men from Honolulu to 'Frisco at our expense, and to say to them that I will meet them on the arrival of the steamer. I find that a steamer sails from Honolulu on Thursday of next week. She is due to arrive on Friday of the week after. My personal affairs are in such a state that I can safely leave them. I have a substantial balance available in the bank. I am going to California to interview the men and then I shall charter a vessel and hunt for the other boat or prosecute whatever search is necessary."

"That's fine," said Stephanie. Then she turned to her father, stretching out her hand. "Father-"

The old man understood perfectly well what she wanted.

"I can amplify that plan a little," he said. "I have been wanting to get away from active business for a long time and my affairs are fortunately in such a shape that I can trust them to others. I should have trusted them to you, Harnash, if you weren't obliged to go along."

"Do you mean-?" cried the girl.

"Yes, I'll send the Stephanie around through the Panama canal immediately" – the Stephanie was a magnificent steam yacht, the greatest, most splendid, and most seaworthy of any of the floating palaces of the millionaires of the seaboard-"and we'll go on that hunt together."

"You mean that I-"

"Of course you can go along. Who has more interest in establishing the fact than you?"

CHAPTER XIV