Anna and her father turned away, perforce, to attend to their own business, after having promised M’riar that they would never let her be sent back; that they would come and take her from the pen tomorrow.  Neither had the least idea of a way in which to make this possible, but both swore in their hearts that it should be accomplished.

“Ach!” said Anna, “if only he had traveled in the third class, too!  He then would have been with us and would never have permitted it.”

“But who, mine liebschen?”

Anna, realizing what she had been saying, colored vividly, but never in her life had she deceived her father, hidden anything from him, or in the slightest way evaded with him, so she summoned courage and said softly:  “Why, the—­the young gentleman.”

“What gentleman?”

“The one on the ship who sprang down when that wicked man caught me to dance with him.”

Herr Kreutzer slowly nodded, seeing no significance in her quick thought of Vanderlyn, save that the thought was rare good sense.  Being an American, the young man naturally would have been better able to explain the matter to the officers, and, had the matter been enough explained, he thought, they could not, possibly, have had the heart to hold the child.  “Ach, yes,” said he.  “If he was here!  He certainly would know.”

Luck, that day, as usually in his wealth-smoothed life, was with young Vanderlyn, for, just as Anna and her father were regretting that he was not there, lo, he appeared!  It had been through his bull-dog persistence that the elder Vanderlyn had won the wealth which son and wife were spending now, since he had passed on to a shore where wealth of gold may not be freighted.  That same bull-dog persistence had the son applied to the momentous problem which confronted him.  Not only had he won his difficult mother over to a friendly interest in the lovely German girl who had so utterly enthralled him, but he had made her eager to keep track of her, see more of her.  Thus had he readily been freed from the small services which a mother might expect of her grown son on landing day; not only freed, but urged to go upon the search for which his heart craved avidly.

He had had some difficulty in obtaining, quickly, an official permit to repair to Ellis Island, but an opened pocketbook had solved it, in due course of time, and, now, here he was, trying to “frame up,” as he expressed it to himself, “some really fair reason for having followed these whom he was seeking.”

The excitement of poor M’riar’s sad predicament made it unnecessary for him to present the reason which he had, with careful pains at length devised.  Kind Fate had wondrously well timed his eager coming.

“What seems to be the trouble?” he asked easily, as he hurried forward with his hat in hand, much comforted by seeing that there was a trouble of some sort.

The matter was explained to him.