Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/104

92 and her throat was beginning to throb, and she wanted Farebrother to go before she betrayed herself.

"Good-by, and God bless you," he said, with one last pressure of the hand.

By that time the gang-plank was being hauled in. Farebrother swung himself over the rail to the deck below, ran along the steamer's gangway, and just as the blue water showed between the great hull and the dock, he cleared it at a bound and stood on the pier waving his hat. The gigantic steamer moved majestically out, while handkerchiefs fluttered from her decks and from the dock. It was now almost dark, but as they steamed quickly out into the moonlit bay, Letty fancied she could still distinguish Farebrother's athletic figure in the shadowy darkness that quickly descended upon the shore.