Page:Cruise of the Jasper B (1916).djvu/90

 mustache with his long white fingers, and stared at me steadfastly through his monocle, with an evil smile upon his face. Formerly he had, in several instances, prevented me from attending suffrage meetings; once he had me spirited away and imprisoned for a week when it fell to my lot to burn a railroad station for the good of the cause. He strove to ruin me with my leaders in this despicable manner.

"But in the end he took to showing himself; he stood and stared. Merely that. He was subtle enough to shift the persecution from the province of the physical to the realm of the psychological. It was like being haunted. Even when I did not see him, I began to think that I saw him. He deliberately planted that hallucination in my mind. It is a wonder that I did not go mad.

"I finally determined to flee to America. I made all my arrangements with care and—as I thought—with secrecy. I imagined that I had given him the slip. But he was too clever for me. The third day out, as one of the ship's officers was showing me about the vessel, I detected Reginald Maltravers in the hold. It is not usual to allow women so far below decks; but I had insisted on seeing every-