come back that night to help her on the catalogue proofs. Somehow they had cleaned up the formidable pile of the morning. Everything had got into the paper. But what was to be done about the leaders? Roger had left her half an hour before saying they would have to get somebody from Auckland. She had resented that idea. She did not want a stranger there. Curiously enough, though she knew Dane was back, and though a part of her intensity was due to the fact that she kept expecting him to appear without warning, it never occurred to her that he might be the way out.
She gave herself a little more time for dinner that night, and found Jimmy, as usual, waiting for her. They had been reading proofs for about an hour when a noise in the composing-room disturbed them.
“Sounds like a rat, Miss Carr,” whispered Jimmy excitedly. He got up and stole to the composing-room door. They had had two rat hunts in the place that winter and the sport had proved absurdly thrilling.
“Yes, miss,” hissed Jimmy in a loud whisper. “A big one; I saw it.”
Valerie bounded out of her chair, forgetting for the moment that Bob might die that night. She darted after Jimmy and closed behind her the composing-room door.
V
Dane ran his launch into the bank opposite the News office, and anchored it in the fringe of rushes where he could step out a foot or two from the path. He swung across the street, tapped on the door, opened it and went in. Over the counter he saw Valerie’s hat and coat hung on a corner nail. But he could see nobody. Then he heard the extraordinary sounds that were proceeding from
