“Oh, but it’s good to see home again!” Laura sighed at last.

“I’m with you,” Quest agreed emphatically.  “It’s the wrong side of the continent, perhaps, but I’m aching to set my foot on American soil again.”

“This the wrong side of the continent!  I should say not!” Laura exclaimed, pointing to where in the distance the buildings of the Exposition gleamed almost snow-white in the dazzling sunshine.  “Why, I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life.”

The Professor intervened amiably.  His face, too, shone with pleasure as he gazed landwards.

“I agree with the young lady,” he declared.  “The blood and sinews of life may seem to throb more ponderously in New York, but there is a big life here on this western side, a great, wide-flung, pulsating life.  There is room here, room to breathe.”

“And it is so beautiful,” Lenora murmured.

Quest glanced a little way along the deck to where a pale-faced man stood leaning upon his folded arms, gazing upon the same scene.  There was no smile on Craig’s face, no light of anticipation in his eyes.

“I guess there’s one of us here,” Quest observed, “who is none too pleased to see America again.”

Lenora shivered a little.  They were all grave.

“We must, I think, admit,” the Professor said, “that Craig’s deportment during the voyage has been everything that could be desired.  He has even voluntarily carried out certain small attentions to my person which I must confess that I had greatly missed.”

“That’s all right,” Quest agreed.  “At the same time I am afraid the moment has come now to remind him that the end is drawing near.”

Quest moved slowly down the deck towards Craig’s side, and touched him on the arm.

“Give me your left wrist, Craig,” he said quietly.

The man slunk away.  There was a sudden look of horror in his white face.  He started back but Quest was too quick for him.  In a moment there was the click of a handcuff, the mate of which was concealed under the criminologist’s cuff.

“You’d better take things quietly,” the latter advised.  “It will only hurt you to struggle.  Step this way a little.  Put your hand in your pocket, so, and no one will notice.”

Craig obeyed silently.  They stepped along the deck towards the rest of the party.  Lenora handed her glasses to Quest.

“Do look, Mr. Quest,” she begged.  “There is Inspector French standing in the front row on the dock, with two enormous bunches of flowers—­carnations for me, I expect, and poinsettias for Laura.  They’re the larger bunch.”

Quest took the glasses and nodded.

“That’s French, right enough,” he assented.  “Look at him standing straightening his tie in front of that advertisement mirror!  Flowers, too!  Say, he’s got his eye on one of you girls.  Not you, by any chance, is it, Lenora?”

Lenora laughed across at Laura, who had turned a little pink.