Page:Keeban (IA keeban00balm).pdf/54

 but did not stop. The warehouse went quiet and there was nobody by the river, so I stepped out.

Here I was, where I had gone in, and I tried to think how I'd changed from ten minutes before. I'd talked to Jerry; or hadn't I?

It was strange that never once, when he was before me and I was speaking to him, I doubted he was Jerry; yet I'd sworn to him, on that night they arrested him, that I'd believe Keeban existed also; I'd believe Keeban robbed Dorothy Crewe and threw her into the street. Consequently, I ought to believe that the man with Christina might be Keeban. But I didn't; I didn't believe in Keeban at all just now; and yet a few minutes ago, I did.

I went home and said nothing to my people; I said nothing about this to any one at all. I stayed by myself that evening and, about eleven o'clock, I walked down by the edge of the lake beyond that strip of park which turns in front of the homes on the Drive and near which we live.

"Steve!" a voice whispered to me; and I jumped about.

Jerry had come up beside me at the edge of the lake. This time he was alone.

He was not in deckhand's garb and Mackinaw