“Engagement in High Life Announced.  Another American Girl to Wed a Nobleman.  Miss Ann Gardner Davidson to become the Baroness Hardacre.”

With a shout he fell upon his knees, seized the paper and read on: 

“Another contemplated matrimonial alliance between one of New York’s fairest daughters and a scion of the English nobility was made public yesterday.  Miss Ann Gardner Davidson, of this city, the breaking of whose engagement to Russell Agnew Brooks, son of George Agnew Brooks, the wealthy cotton broker, was the sensation of the early spring, is to marry Herbert Ainsworth-Ainsworth, Baron Hardacre, of Hardacre Towers, Surrey on Kent, England.  It was said that the young lady broke off her former engagement with Young Brooks because of—­”

The prisoner in the boathouse read no further.  Ruth Graham had said to him the day before that, in her opinion, he had treated Ann Davidson unfairly.  He should have gone to her and told her of his quarrel with his father.  Although he did not care for Ann, she might care for him.  Might care enough to wait and . . .  Wait?  Why, she cared so little that, within a few months, she was ready to marry another man.  And, if he owed her any debt of honor, no matter how farfetched and fantastic, it was canceled now.  He was absolutely free.  And he had been right all the time.  He could prove it.  He would show Ruth Graham that paper and . . .

His jaw set tight, and he rose from the heap of fish nets with the folded paper clinched like a club in his hand.  He was going to get out of that boathouse if he had to butt a hole through its boards with his head.

Once more he climbed to the window and made an attempt to squeeze through.  It was futile, of course, but this time it seemed to him that the sill and the plank to which it was attached gave a little.  He put the paper between his teeth, seized the sill with both hands, braced his feet against a beam below, and jerked with all his strength.  Once—­twice—­three times!  It was giving!  It was pulling loose!  He landed on his back upon the nets, sill and a foot of boarding in his hands.  In exactly five seconds, the folded newspaper jammed in his trousers pocket, he swung through the opening and dropped to the narrow space between the building and the end of the wharf.

The space was a bare six inches wide.  As he struck, his ankle turned under him, he staggered, tried wildly to regain his balance, and fell.  As he fell he caught a glimpse of a blue-clad figure at the top of the bluff before the bungalow.  Then he went under with a splash, and the eager tide had him in its grasp.

When he came to the surface and shook the water from his eyes, he was already some distance from the wharf.  This, an indication of the force of the tide, should have caused him to realize his danger instantly.  But it did not.  His mind was intent upon the accomplishment of one thing, namely, the proving to Ruth Graham, by means of the item in the paper, that he was no longer under any possible obligation to the Davidson girl.  Therefore, his sole feeling, as he came sputtering to the top of the water, was disgust at his own clumsiness.  It was when he tried to turn and swim back to the wharf that he grasped the situation as it was.  He could not swim against that tide.