Part 2— Chapter XIX.

Katrine came slowly up the companion-way, and looked around the deck in search of her labelled chair. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and the sun was blazing out of a cloudless sky. Yesterday in Marseilles it had been grey and chill. The only cheerful thing had been Grizel’s face, fresh, pink-cheeked, unashamedly aglow. The secret of her happiness was patent to the most casual eye. Tired men and work-worn women looked at her as she passed, and glowed in sympathy, and from her their glance passed on to the tall man with the deep-set eyes, who walked by her side. Martin’s happiness was as great as his wife’s, but man-like he was at pains to conceal it. The consciousness of being observed was enough to extinguish his smiles, and Katrine was amusedly conscious that he was making an effort to appear depressed at the prospect of her own departure. The newly-married pair had accompanied her on board the steamer, armed with flowers, with fruit, with scent and bonbons, with cushions and medicines, until the small cabin had been blocked to overflowing, and the passengers who had braved the rigours of the Bay, debated among themselves as to the identity of the handsome girl who had such a luxurious send-off.

Standing on the deck amid the roar and bustle of approaching departure, the three had spoken their farewell words.

“I won’t say good-bye,” Grizel declared. “En avant! Katrine! There’s a good time coming!”

But the tears stood in Katrine’s eyes. She was leaving the known, the safe, and the sure, and sailing forth into the unknown. Fear seized her, and with it regret.

“If—if I come home soon... You won’t be cross if I turn up like a bad penny? You will take me in, until I find some work?”

“My dear girl, you know it! If you are not happy; if you don’t want to go, come back with us now! Never mind the clothes... We’ll arrange all that. You shan’t go one step against your will...”

Grizel laid her hand on her husband’s arm. Her cool, calm voice was like a tonic, bracing the hearers into composure.

“She is going of her own will, and if You would take her back with you now, I won’t, so you can choose between us! We’re ready for you, Katrine dear, when you’ve tried it, and grown tired, but not before. I’m just afraid we’ll have too long to wait! ... Now smile this minute! Would you leave me stranded on a foreign shore with a lugubrious spouse!”

Then Katrine laughed, and they kissed and embraced, and Grizel slipping her hand through her husband’s arm, drew him towards the gangway.

“Belovedest!” she whispered softly. “I’m here!” and Katrine looking down from her towering perch watched the lift of the charming face, caught the swift, mutual glance, and realised that no outside anxiety could mar the perfection of that love. She sighed, but the predominant sensation was relief, not pain. A chapter of her life was turned. She thanked God that it closed in sunshine!

And now it was the morning of her first day at sea. Tired after her long overland journey, she had retired to bed while her fellow-passengers were at dinner, and had slept so soundly in her narrow bunk that on waking there had been a moment’s blank bewilderment before she could realise her position. A stewardess stood before her bearing the early cup of tea; on the berth opposite a gaunt, grey-haired woman was sitting, cup in hand, staring at her with curious eyes.

“Mornin’!” she said tersely. “First introduction. You were asleep when I turned in last night. Glad you don’t snore!”

“Goodness! I never thought of that. How awful!” exclaimed Katrine, laughing in her turn. She sipped at her cup, and grimaced eloquently. “Ugh. What is it? Tea or coffee?”

“Mixed,” replied the other gravely. “To suit all tastes.”

She drank again with apparent enjoyment. “Always drink it myself out of principle. Charge you too much to leave out a meal... First trip?”

“First time in my life I ever slept in a berth. I’d no idea they were so comfortable.”

The grey-haired lady fumbled beneath her pillow, placed a pair of spectacles on her nose, and stared across with frank curiosity.

“Bride?”

“I beg your pardon!”

“Unnecessary, thank you. It’s my tenth voyage. Met shoals of brides. You look the type.”

Katrine ostentatiously displayed her left hand.

“I hope that’s a compliment. As a matter of fact, I am going out to join some friends in North Bengal.”

“Missionaries?”

Katrine jumped till the cup rattled in a threatening manner.

“No! Cer-tainly not.”

“Humph!” said the grey-haired woman, and scraped the sugar from her cup. “I’m sorry for any girl,” she announced tentatively between the spoonfuls, “who goes out to one of those lonely plantations... No fun. No chances. Fifty times worse than at home.”

“Is that so? Really? I’m sorry!” Katrine shook her head, and endeavoured to look perturbed.

The good sleep, the novelty of the surroundings, the glimpse of blue through the port-hole, combined to produce an exhilarating effect. She felt gay and mischievous, too light-hearted to resent her companion’s curiosity, but none the less determined not to gratify it. She ate bread and butter, and sipped at the compound liquor in silence, the while the spectacled eyes continued their scrutiny.

“Odd thing—the Indian climate,” continued the stranger in ruminating fashion. “Changes the constitootion. Never know which way you’ll go, but it’s bound to be one. You’ll grow fat!”

That roused Katrine. Her head twisted round, indignant colour stained her cheeks.

“I shan’t! I shouldn’t dream of such a thing... Far more likely—”

“Excuse me—no! I’ve had experience. Some dwindle to skeletons, but not your build. Niece of mine sailed with me two years ago. Twenty-two-inch waist. Put on a stone in three months. All her bodices altered. Two stones more since then, and a double chin. Looks like her own mother. But of course if you take much exercise... Some of the civil appointments are quite good. If you keep horses, and ride each morning—”

“Just so,” assented Katrine. “Just so.” She was discomposed by the prospect of obesity, the more so as Dorothea’s excessive thinness would seem to confirm the assertion that the climate was extreme in its effects. A moment passed in the earnest consideration of the disadvantages of fat versus lean, then the grey-haired one plunged boldly into autobiography:

“My husband was a judge. Mannering. Bombay. Thousand a year pension, but not a penny to leave behind. No use any one making up to me! Got a boy in the Indian Cavalry. Going out now to pay him a call. Nice boy. Was, at least, when I saw him last. May have changed, of course.”

Katrine’s looks became suddenly infused with interest.

“Then our destinations are not far apart. Do you know—have you any friends in the — Regiment?”

“Not—one—soul!” said the stranger emphatically, and in a manner which seemed to imply that nothing would induce her to consent to such an entanglement. She hunched up the pillows behind her back, and continued forcibly. “Detest the military. Always did. Quite against my wishes that the boy went in; but there I am—silly fool! proud as any one of ’em, when I see him dressed up... Stinting myself for his gold lace! Well, well, we’re all fools at heart, my dear, every man jack of us, and women too... When are you going to take your bath?”

The catechism was over for the moment. Katrine staggered out of bed, robed herself in a dainty blue dressing-gown and smoothed her dark locks, uneasily conscious that not a ribbon, a lace, or a French knot itself escaped the scrutiny of the watching eyes. When she returned, fresh and rosy, her companion departed in her turn, and returned just as Katrine was finishing her hair in time to announce briskly:

“Warm sunny day! Seen three girls in white frocks. Sport one yourself, and cut ’em out! Great thing to make a good impression!”

“I don’t care,”—began Katrine haughtily, then the spirit of the hour choked the words in her throat. “Yes, after all, I do!” she laughed, and kneeling before her cabin trunk lifted a fresh white frock from the tray. “I’ll put on this, and do credit to our cabin!”

“Cheers!” cried the stranger, and with a pleasing frankness extracted her false teeth.

Katrine mounted the steps to the deck. There was still half an hour to spare before breakfast, but she wished it had been twice as long, as she paced slowly down the shining deck, and tasted for the first time the deep salt brine of the breeze. Only fifteen hours before she had shivered in rain and chill; now the sun was shining out of a cloudless sky, and the breeze was warm and sweet. The exhilaration of it all! The great vessel in its shining order, the air, the spray, the lap of the great green flood, the kaleidoscopic procession of passengers, strolling like herself, bareheaded, white-robed, revelling in the first taste of heat after the Northern cold!

Katrine was loath to tear herself away from the fascinating scene, but the duty of interviewing the steward lay before her. She descended, armed with a golden key, proffered her request, and met with a gracious consent.

Nothing could be easier. A party of three were landing at Port Said; Miss Beverley could be given a place at the same table, and Captain Bedford could also be accommodated on arrival.

So far so good! Katrine ate her breakfast with an enjoyment heightened by her fast of the night before, came to the conclusion that she should not grieve over the departure of the Port Said trio, and armed with a book and a sunshade, mounted once more to the deck.

The first business was to find her chair, and a difficult search it promised to be. She was wandering aimlessly to and fro reading the names attached to the backs of the serried rows, when a voice spoke in her ear:

“Can I help?” it asked. “You are looking for a chair, I think. If you give me the name, I’d be delighted to find it for you.”

The speaker was a tall, strikingly handsome man of some twenty-four or five years. Katrine had noticed him at an adjacent table during the lengthy breakfast; had also been conscious that he had noticed herself. She expressed her thanks, and in an incredibly short time the chair was produced, and placed in a comfortable position.

“May I bring mine alongside?” enquired the stranger, and Katrine bowed assent. She had anticipated the request, and was gratified thereby. On shipboard one need not trouble about conventional introductions, and it would be agreeable to have a companion who knew the ropes, and who could enliven the morning with agreeable tit-bits of information concerning her fellow-travellers.

She smiled therefore at the handsome fellow in her most friendly manner; whereupon he smiled back, and glibly burst into autobiography:

“Austin Murray is my name, England is my nation, Engineering is my game, Bombay my destination.”

“Thanks very much,” returned Katrine gravely. “Katherine Beverley is my name—”

“Any relation to the author chap who robbed that poor girl of her cash?”

“I am!”

The terse affirmative had a disturbing effect on Mr Murray’s composure. He had evidently not expected it, and had the grace to look confused.

“I say, you know, I didn’t know... ’Pologise! Didn’t really mean it like that!” He pondered, and pondering was struck with a brilliant inspiration. “I say! The couple who came on board with you yesterday! You don’t mean to say—”

“I didn’t mean to say,” corrected Katrine calmly, “but yes! you have guessed correctly. That was my brother and his wife!”

“Brother!” Mr Murray whistled softly, but made no attempt to apologise a second time. Katrine diagnosed him as being little in the habit of eating humble pie.

“I say,” he exclaimed once more, “if a girl like that gave up all that for me, I should be ruined for life! Bowled over! Eaten up with conceit. She’s a corker! Isn’t she a corker, now?”

“She is generally considered to be excessively—corking!” agreed Katrine demurely, and then suddenly she laughed; a gay, light-hearted laugh. What a change it was! To sit on this wide shining deck among a crowd of strangers, to exchange frivolities with one of the handsomest of men, also a stranger, to feel the sun beat on her neck, on her outstretched feet, to have nothing to do, and nothing to care for, but her own ease and enjoyment! She laughed, leaning her head against the back of her chair; the sun flecked her hair with gold, the clear healthy tints of her skin seemed to gain in colour in the dancing light. Mr Murray hitched his chair a degree nearer, and spoke in a lower voice:

“I say... You don’t know any one on board?”

“Not yet. No.”

“How would it be if—what would you say to fixing up a steamship flirtation?”

Katrine straightened herself with a jerk.

“I beg your pardon! I don’t quite understand—”

“Oh, it’s simple enough. Always do it myself on a long voyage. Much more satisfactory and amusin’ than just trustin’ to luck... Spot some one you like, and agree to sit together on deck, be partners at sports, moon about,—under the moon!—confide your woes, comfort and soothe, sentimentalise a bit—especially towards the end—”

Katrine threw him a glance, beneath lids haughtily dropped.

“Tha-anks. It sounds very interesting. And then—?”

“Oh, then?” Mr Murray twisted his moustache. “Then—you’re there, you know, and er—you say good-bye!”

“Very interesting!” commented Katrine once more, “but I’m afraid I can’t play. The idea doesn’t thrill me, and besides I have a—friend coming on board at Port Said, who will naturally expect some attention.”

“Rotten luck!” sighed Mr Murray, and for sixty seconds on end looked seriously downcast. “But of course,” he added thoughtfully, “if it were only to Port Said—”

“Just so. It would be a pity to break the continuity of your scheme. You have had quite a long voyage already. How is it that you have not already—” Katrine stopped short, as an expression of discomfiture flitted over the handsome face, and altered the character of her enquiry. “May I ask how many others you have asked before me?”

“Not—many!” stammered Mr Murray ingenuously. His gaze wandered uneasily round the deck, and Katrine’s following his, met a pair of mischievous brown eyes set in a plump girlish face. The eyes were fixed upon herself with an expression of such interest and curiosity as told its own tale, and Katrine hastily lowered her white umbrella. Simultaneously the plump girl lowered her own, but it shook! Austin Murray, looking from one wobbling frame to the other, chewed his moustache in disgust.

“Perhaps,” he explained stiffly, “I am too ambitious. One needs must love the highest... There are, of course, a dozen girls who would be only too glad—”

“Then,” said Katrine hastily, “pray lose no time in securing one of the number. If you don’t, they may be snapped up. Don’t let me detain—”

Mr Murray leaped from his seat, bowed deeply, and walked rapidly away. To the end of the voyage he kept sedulously out of Katrine’s way.

Katrine lay contentedly in her chair luxuriating in the sun and the breeze, and lazily studying the passers-by. As usual under the circumstances she dubbed the passengers dull and uninteresting. Further acquaintance might reveal hidden fascinations, but for the present she failed to discover any of the types for which she looked. The fascinating grass widow playing havoc with other hearts, while keeping her own serenely untouched; the beauteous maids sailing forth to conquer new worlds, the purple-faced and choleric colonels; the flock of interesting, unattached males!—where had they all disappeared? She saw before her a company for the most part staid and middle-aged, bearing the chastened air of the outward bound; the sprinkling of youngsters were of very ordinary attractions, the flock of children, fascinating for an hour, but becoming painfully in evidence as the day wore on. Only one figure arrested her attention, and that from a reason more painful than pleasant. He was a man approaching middle-age, with a finely-hewn face, on which consumption had deeply hewn its mark. He paced the deck wrapped in an old Inverness cape, and at intervals leaned coughing over the rail. So far as Katrine’s observation went, he spoke to nobody, and nobody spoke to him. Her heart softened at his air of suffering, and she determined that if fate threw him in her way, she would open an acquaintance.

After tea the grey-haired Mrs Mannering joined her room-mate for a promenade round the deck, and treated her to staccato items of information.

“Sticky lot! Always are on these boats. Thank goodness there are very few soldiers on board. When there are, it’s worse than ever. Cavalry cuts Infantry, Infantry snubs civilians. Civil servants bar trade. So you go on! Don’t trouble me. I know too much about ’em!” She gave a quick, keen glance. “Like scandal?”

“Thank you, no! I hate it.”

“Quite right, too. At your age. I don’t mind telling you that it’s the breath of my nostrils. No pretence about me. What I think I say! Give me a good, spicy divorce...”

Katrine quickened her pace, eyelids drooped, corners of lips turned down. Never in all her twenty-six years had she listened to such a sentiment. Horror seized her at the idea of being shut up in close quarters with a woman of degraded tastes. Would it be possible to change cabins?

“Bless you, my lamb. I won’t sully your little mind!”

The kind, motherly voice spoke in such apt response to the inner thought, that Katrine jumped in her skin. She turned, rosy and shy, half-angry, half-ashamed, and saw a wrinkled hand held out towards her.

“There! That’s agreed—I like you. Right sort of girl. Don’t you worry! You might do a lot worse than have old Nance Mannering as a companion. I’ve lived east of Suez too long not to be able to adapt myself to my company. You’ll get no contamination from me, and what’s more, I’ll protect you from getting it elsewhere. You have a word with me, my dear, before you take up with any of these boys, and I’ll put you on your guard. Poor lot, most of them; drinking and gambling...”

“I don’t think I shall ‘take up’ with any one, thank you. A fellow-officer of my host in India is to join the ship at Port Said, and will look after me for the rest of the voyage. He is not a very young man, but I’m told he is nice. I expect to enjoy his society. There’s only one man I’ve seen on board who interests me at all. The one with the cape, who looks so ill.”

“Vernon Keith. Artist. Rather a big wig in his way, or promised to be, a year or two since. Consumption of course,—and his own folly! Going this voyage for health, if it please you! The mad folly of doctors to allow a man in that condition to start out on such a crack-brained expedition, mewed up among hundreds of people, scattering poison wherever he goes! Sea air is all very well, but what about the smoke-room, eh? What about the bars? Temptation waiting on every hand, and no one to say him nay. The passengers steer clear of him, and no wonder. By ten o’clock at night—”

“Perhaps,” said Katrine quickly, “if people did not steer clear, things might be different. I shan’t, if I get the chance. He is ill and weak, and I’m sure he is sad. He looked miserable this morning, pacing up and down alone. Isn’t it rather Pharisaical to stand aside because a man is ill, and—weak?”

The spectacled eyes twinkled humorously.

“Well, well, he’ll be pleased enough, no doubt, but don’t be too kind, and raise expectations which can’t be fulfilled! Port Said’s ahead—and the nice man!”

“And—Jim!” added Katrine softly to herself. When the dusk fell, she stood for an hour leaning over the rail, watching the phosphorescent glow on the darkened waves, sending out wistful, timorous thoughts toward that meeting which was growing momentarily nearer. “Jim!”

Chapter Twenty.

During the second day at sea, chance arranged the introduction which Katrine had coveted with the consumptive artist, Vernon Keith. The breeze had freshened, and wrapped in a light cloak she was sitting on her chair in a sheltered corner, when a sudden gust lifted her scarf and magazine, and blew them along the deck. Involuntarily she groped in pursuit, and in so doing overbalanced and alighted in a heap, the chair, after the manner of its kind, doubling up, and following suit. It all happened with such startling unexpectedness, that for a moment Katrine sat panting and breathless, making no effort to rise. Flushed, bare-headed, white-robed, she made a charming picture, and more than one of the surrounding men dashed forward to her help, but before any one could reach her side, Vernon Keith had seized the chair, twisted it deftly into position, and held out a helping hand.

“I hope you are not hurt!”

“I—I really don’t know,” Katrine sat down, laid her head against the back of the chair, and smiled in vague, strained fashion. She stretched herself cautiously, and gradually regained composure. “No! I’m sure I am not. But it was startling...” She blushed a little beneath the watching eyes. “I—I had a book!”

“It is here,” he said, and placed it on her knee. “Is there anything I can get for you? I am sure you have had a shock. Some wine?”

“Oh, no.” The suggestion brought back the remembrance of Mrs Mannering’s hint, and awoke a determination to take advantage of the present opportunity. “I shall be quite all right, if I talk about something else, and forget myself!”

The invitation was obvious, the diffidence of the accompanying smile delightfully naïve and girl-like. Vernon Keith seated himself with obvious alacrity. Seen close at hand he looked older, more worn; there were lines about his mouth with which country-bred Katrine was unfamiliar, the irises of his eyes were faintly bloodshot. For all her inexperience she recognised that these symptoms were not the result of ill-health alone.

They talked for an hour, a pleasant, inconsequent talk, flitting from one subject to another; books, pictures, theatres, travel, and when they parted at the sound of the luncheon gong, he stood before her, gaunt and tall, and said gravely:

“Thank you for the first happy hour I have spent for months!”

“I hope we shall have many more,” Katrine had answered, confused and startled, but as she took her way to her cabin she could have found it in her heart to regret the words. “He is clever, he is interesting, he is cultivated,—but I don’t like him! There’s something in his face.—I am glad it is not he who is to look after me!” During the luncheon hour, however, her ruminations carried her to a different plane. “It doesn’t matter whether I like him or not. He is ill and lonely, and he—drinks! because he has nothing better to do. I’ll be kind to him. I’ll get Captain Bedford to be kind. Perhaps between us we can keep him straight...”

Poor Katrine! She felt a glow of satisfaction when again that evening Vernon Keith spent an hour by her side. She paced the deck with him, acutely conscious of looks of disapproval from several elderly quarters, feeling a childish sense of elation every time that the entrance to the smoke-room was passed in safety, exerting herself to start fresh subjects of interest each time the conversation flagged, but in spite of all her efforts, by half-past nine her companion grew restless, answered at random, and finally excused himself, pleading fatigue, a letter to be begun—

Well! Katrine consoled herself, at least he had had an hour in the fresh air, and could feel that some one was interested, and that he was no longer ostracised... She found her cabin companion, and sat demurely by her side until after eleven o’clock, the beauty of the night making her unwilling to retire to the stuffy cabin. When at last they rose and turned towards the companion-way, Katrine felt pleasantly tired, and confident of a good night’s rest, but the most exciting incident of the day was still to come. Mrs Mannering led the way a few paces ahead, and Katrine, following in the rear, found her way suddenly blocked by a tall form with flushed face, and dulled eyes, from whose garments floated the unmistakable fumes of whisky.

It was Vernon Keith, and for a moment they stood motionless, face to face, her eyes cold and stern, his lightening into recognition, then flinching with a pathetic shame.

“I—thought—you—had gone,” he stammered thickly. “Getting late—for you. Ver’—late.” He was turning back in the direction of the smoke-room, when with a sudden impulse, Katrine laid her hand on his arm.

“Mr Keith! Will you do me a favour? You are not well, and it is bad for you to sit up late... Won’t you say good-night now, and go straight to bed?”

He straightened himself, and drew a deep breath. As if a veil had been drawn from his face, the blank look vanished, and the soul of the man looked at her through the bloodshot eyes. For the moment he was startled into sobriety.

“If—if you ask it. Of course. At—at once!” he said, and turning followed in her wake.

Had Mrs Mannering seen, or had she not? Katrine could not decide. She was thankful at least that she was treated to no remarks, but could hurry into bed and lie quietly in the darkness, thinking over the situation. One thing was certain—the incident had at a stride carried Vernon Keith and herself beyond the stage of conventional acquaintance. It seemed impossible that they could meet again without reference to that short, pregnant meeting. What would be said? Would he be shamed, resentful, defiant? Katrine could not guess; hardly knew for which mood to wish. Curiously enough the success of her appeal had roused a nervous mistrust, so that she regretted her own audacity, and wished helplessly that she had waited for Captain Bedford’s help. “Will he think it was bold of me?” she questioned of her own heart. “Will they tell him in the smoke-room that I walked about with a man to whom no other girl will speak? Will he think I am bold and fast, and tell Jim?” Quick as a dart came the answering assurance. “Jim will understand!” and at the comfort of it she laughed softly aloud.

A sleepy murmur from the opposite bunk reminded her of the existence of her room-mate. She blushed and stammered in the dark:

“I—I beg your pardon. What did you say?”

“Bless you!” repeated the voice distinctly. “But don’t do it again.—He’ll keep, my dear—he’ll keep!”

The next morning, to Katrine’s relief, there was no sign of Vernon Keith at breakfast. She drew her chair into a quiet corner and sat with her back to the passing stream, affecting to be engrossed in her book, but shortly before noon a shadow loomed, and with a fluttering of heart she divined that the dreaded encounter was at hand. He placed his chair by her side, and fixed her with haggard eyes, but he spoke no word, not even the conventional greeting; it was left to her to open the conversation.

“Oh, Mr Keith—good-morning! I was reading.—Isn’t it a nice day?”

“Is it?” he queried listlessly. “I was not thinking of to-day. I was thinking of last night.” His eyes pierced her through, he bent nearer, speaking with a horrible deliberation. “Are—you—accustomed—to—drunken—men?”

Katrine cowered; repulsed and frightened.

“Never—never!—I have never so much as spoken to one—be—”

“Before!” he concluded calmly. “Well! I am drunk, more or less, every night of my life, and shall be to the end. It’s a habit which it is difficult to break! You thought it would be satisfying for a man to walk round the deck with a beautiful girl for his companion, feeling the fresh breeze, watching the sea and the sky; more tempting than a foul room with the fumes of smoke and whisky.—It is better! For an hour I was grateful and content. After that—” he hissed the words in her ear, “after that—sooner than have stayed with you, sooner than exchange your company for the bottle and the glass, do you know what I would have done?—I would have lifted you in my arms, and tossed you into that sea!”

Katrine shrunk from him, aghast. For the first time in her life she faced the despair of a self-wrecked life, and realised the impotence of human help. The chains which the years had forged bound this man in his prison, and she had essayed to free him in a few light hours. If he had shown signs of excitement or emotion, the moment would have been more bearable. It was his dreadful composure which rent her heart.

Her lip quivered; she shook her head in helpless distress.

“Why do you tell me this? I didn’t ask—I don’t want to know. We can be friends...”

“Can we?” he smiled bitterly. “Are you so brave? That’s fine of you, but it’s too late. I am a drunkard, and it has come to this—I don’t even wish to be cured! Drink is my only comfort; the thing that helps me to forget. The good people among whom you have lived (you have met only good people, I think. That shows in your face!) they have told you that it is drunkenness which causes most of the misery in the world. In future will you try sometimes to reverse the statement, and acknowledge that it is often misery which causes drink? It caused it with me,—heart-break and treachery, failure and struggle, and then, at the first promise of success, this!” he tapped his bent chest, “this demon choking my life. I have nearly a whole lung left. Would you think it? Down in that cabin, gasping for breath, it is difficult to realise that there’s so much. And they sent me this voyage, the people at home... What for? My sake, or their own? To get rid of me—to be spared the end?”

“No, no!” Katrine protested, “don’t say it. It isn’t true, it can only do you harm to think it. No one could be so wicked.”

His lips twisted in a sneer.

“Would it be wicked? When the sheep is so black, when he refuses to be washed, and brings disgrace on innocent heads? There is no hope for me, Miss Beverley; a month more, or a month less, that’s the only question that remains. Sea air is supposed to be good, and sitting at home people think only of the air, and forget the other incidents of life on shipboard, which are not conducive to the welfare of a man suffering from my—complaints! I am worse than when we sailed. Shall grow worse every day. Doubly infected, you see! A leper to be shunned.”

He stared at her keenly, his mouth twisted by the bitter mockery of a smile. There was no sign of softening on his face, rather did he appear to sneer at the puny efforts which had been made on his behalf. He had spoken of her as a “beautiful girl,” but in a manner so impersonal as to rob the words of flattery. Katrine turned her head aside, unable to meet that gaze, and sat silent, gazing out to sea. For a long quarter of an hour neither spoke a word, but the silence was charged. Each felt the influence of the other’s thoughts, divined the other’s sentiments. At a certain moment they turned simultaneously to look into each other’s eyes, and in this last look was kindness and comprehension.

“Miss Beverley,” said the man, “you are a good woman. You have done me good, though not in the way you intended. I shall drink as much as ever, understand that! but you’ve done me good. If you are brave enough to defy convention by giving a little of your time to a prodigal, I’ll take what I can get, and for the rest—keep out of your way! But you have only to say a word—”

Katrine held out her hand.

“I don’t want to say it. It is nothing to me what people think. Come and talk to me whenever you feel inclined. I have no friends on board, but at Port Said a man is joining the ship who is in the same regiment as my host, and he is supposed to look after me for the rest of the voyage. I hope we shall both like him! We could sit together and have more interesting talks. Men get tired of womaney subjects.”

“Ah,” he said flatly, “that’s good! I’m glad you will have some one. You are beautiful, you know. You oughtn’t to be alone.”

Again the impersonal tone minimised the words. Katrine realised that as a woman she had no personality for the man; she was merely a shape—a picture; even his gratitude was a lifeless thing; the man’s power of feeling, of resistance, was exhausted. It was indeed, as he had said, “too late.”

Chapter Twenty One.

The ship dropped anchor in the harbour of Port Said early in the morning, and almost immediately afterwards four large coal barges, lashed together, were towed towards her, with a not unmusical chanting of “Oola! Oola! Oola!” from their Arab crew.

Veritable imps of Satan did the men appear, dyed to an ebon blackness, and the passengers made haste to depart shorewards to escape the ordeal of the day. Katrine, Mrs Mannering, and Vernon Keith formed a little party by themselves; the elder woman trim and gaunt in grey alpaca, Katrine immaculately white, with a broad-brimmed hat shading face and neck. An undercurrent of excitement at the prospect of meeting the first of her Indian friends brightened her eyes, and infused her whole aspect with a delightful animation. The first duty on shore was to purchase topees, which to Katrine’s relief proved to be much more becoming than she had anticipated. Her choice had indeed quite a fashionable aspect, being of the wide Merry Widow shape, the pith foundation daintily covered with white cotton, while a green lining and light hanging scarf added to the general effect, and sent her out of the shop complacently reassured.

They walked about the sun-baked streets of the squalid town, the gaunt man, the grey-haired woman, and between them the young blooming girl, passing quickly by the few decent houses which skirt the quay, to visit the native quarters, Katrine’s first glimpse of the East. There was none of the glamour which she had expected in the ramshackle buildings, cabins, and hencoops, with but little to differentiate one from the other. Dark-skinned men lounged about in every variety of bed-gown, women sported the heavy yashmak, in addition to a brass band across the forehead, from which four large brass rings depended over the nose. Children swarmed around thick as mosquitoes, begging in broken English, any claims to beauty which they might have possessed obliterated by the almost universal pitting of smallpox.

The animals were more attractive, but in the absence of even the smallest blade of grass their presence seemed difficult to explain. The goats appeared to live on bits of paper and scraps of orange peel, while the cows, dogs, and cats which with the goats wandered restlessly about the streets fared even worse. As for the camels and donkeys, they stood about in groups, or lay in the sand with their usual expression of bored resignation.

Vernon Keith laughed at Katrine’s undisguised dismay.

“Don’t judge the East by Port Said, Miss Beverley! It is a nightmare of a hole, where no one lives who is not absolutely compelled. Even these Arab coal-porter fellows bring their families here for two or three months, work like the devil, and then disappear into the desert to live like fighting cocks until their earnings are finished... Here’s a water hydrant,—suppose we stand here and watch the people fill their skins! It may give you a laugh, and that’s a difficult thing to achieve in this part of the world.”

Katrine looked around eagerly. A group of Europeans had already gathered round the hydrant, some of whom she recognised as passengers on her own boat; the others were strangers, for whom at the moment she had no attention to spare. An Arab woman was holding to the tap a crumpled mass of skin, into which the water was gradually falling. Even as she watched, the folded mass swelled and wriggled in life-like contortions. The crowd broke into laughter; the Arab woman, expectant of backsheesh, responded with a gleaming smile. Katrine danced on her toes like an excited child.

“What is it? What is it? A pig-skin? A calf-skin? A sloper? It’s just like a dying sloper! What can it be?”

Suddenly from out the sausage-like round shot a leg, kicking, as it were, into space; a second leg, more legs, a tail—then the Arab woman gave an adroit twist to the balloon, and a final shriek of laughter from the crowd greeted the cocking of frisky ears, above the life-like head!

The sight was so irresistibly comic, that even Vernon Keith was surprised into a smile, which broadened at sight of Katrine’s childlike delight. The clear treble of her laughter, the involuntary dance of her eager feet, the beauty of the sparkling face, made her indeed the cynosure of every eye. Fellow-passengers smiled at her with a kindliness which had in it an element of remorse. “The girl who walked about with that horrible man”—appeared suddenly in a different light,—not an adventuress after all, but a girl whose experience of life was behind her years, a child at heart who meant no harm. The strangers whispered among themselves, and speculated as to her relationship with the man and woman by her side.

The Arab woman shouldered her burden and walked away, enriched by several voluntary offerings, and the object of interest being removed, Katrine became embarrassingly conscious of the general scrutiny. She cast a rapid glance around the group, skimming quickly from one face to another, until suddenly, startlingly, she found herself held by the gaze of a pair of eyes, a man’s eyes, steely grey, with a curious effect of lightness against the deep tan of the skin. There was something in those eyes, a magnetism, an intentness, which gripped Katrine with a force amounting to positive pain. Each of us in his turn has had such an experience, but it is all too rare, for the eyes of our fellow-creatures, so far from being windows of the soul, are as a rule little more illuminating than any other feature. Tired eyes, shallow eyes, blank, expressionless eyes, one encounters them at every turn, but only at rare and memorable intervals eyes alive, magnetic, which not only look straight from the heart of their owner, but like a searchlight pierce straight to one’s own. When this experience comes, it forges a link which neither time nor distance can break. Two souls have met, and mutely acclaimed their kinship.

While one might have counted ten, Katrine stood, motionless, almost without breath, gazing deep into the strange man’s eyes, then with the wrench of physical effort, she turned aside, and slipped her hand through Mrs Mannering’s arm.

“Come! Let us go!”

They walked on. Vernon Keith on one side, Mrs Mannering on the other, large, gaunt, protective, her arm gripping the girl’s hand to her grey alpaca side. Katrine loved her for that grip, but her mind was still engrossed in visualising the figure of a tall man, thin, yet broad, of a tanned face, and light grey eyes.

The glare from the sand seemed of a sudden to have become monstrous, unbearable. She felt a tired longing for the cool white deck.

“How soon can we go back? How long will those—sweeps—take over their work?”

“Not long,” Vernon said. “They are incredibly quick. Three hours for a matter of eight or nine hundred tons. We will go to the hotel and get something to drink. Has the sun been too much for you? You look so suddenly tired.”

Beneath her breath Mrs Mannering grunted disgust at the blindness of man. When the hotel was reached, and she and Katrine sat alone for a few minutes waiting the arrival of drinks, she looked at the girl with a kindly twinkle and said abruptly:

“No need to take it to heart, my dear. Your own fault! You were worth looking at, and he looked—that’s all! A cat may look at a king.”

Katrine smiled faintly.

“Yes—of course. Stupid of me. But there was something in his eyes that—startled! Did you ever have that curious feeling on meeting a stranger? Not recognition—it’s more like expectation—as if he mattered!”

Mrs Mannering grunted again.

“I know a fool when I see him, and an honest man. I know when to be civil, or to give a wide berth. Common-sense, I call it; not curious at all. Rather a fine figure, that man! You’d make a good pair. I’ve been thinking, you know, he might be that friend who is coming on board... Eh, what?”

To her surprise Katrine violently resented the suggestion.

“Oh, no!” she cried loudly. “I am sure he is not. Captain Bedford will be quite different.” A look almost of fear flitted over her face. “I’m quite sure it was not he!”

Mrs Mannering shrugged her shoulders, “Well! have it your own way. If I were a pretty, unattached female, and was introduced to that man as my travelling companion, I should feel I was in for a good time! On the other hand, if you were a bride, my dear, I’d stick to you like glue, out of sympathy for the poor man waiting his turn...”

Katrine hesitated, fighting an impulse which prompted her to confide in this kind, shrewd woman, to confess the real object of her journey, and secure her help and counsel. The words trembled on her lip; another second and they would have found speech; then the door opened and Vernon Keith appeared, followed by a waiter bearing refreshments. The opportunity was past.

Chapter Twenty Two.

On returning to the ship Katrine found several letters waiting, one of which bore Jim Blair’s well-known writing. She tore it open immediately on reaching her cabin, and was disappointed to find it unusually short. Excitement, restlessness, and an unusual press of business made it impossible, he explained, to write at length, the more so as he was pledged not to speak of the subject which lay nearest his heart. He hoped she had made some woman friend on board, who would look after her, as not even the best of men could do. Bedford would probably have to hurry off immediately on landing to bring up a company of men, but as Dorothea would explain, the agent in Bombay had been instructed to look after tickets, baggage, etc., and make every arrangement for the four days’ journey. Could she not find some woman who would share the carriage for even part of the way? Her second letter, following hard on the heels of that memorable acceptance, had been perhaps a necessary corrective, but she could hardly expect it to be welcome! So far the letter was grave, commonplace, almost business-like, but at the end an effort had evidently been made to adopt a lighter tone. He referred to her examination paper, declared that a careful examination of ears having been made, by means of tape measure and mirror, he might be considered to have passed with honours. As to the wife’s little ways, his mode of procedure would in each case be the same,—“Kiss the wife!”

That evoked a smile, but despite the effort at brightness Katrine was conscious of the underlying depression, which the last sentence put into words. “Now that our meeting is so near, I am consumed with doubts. Not of my own feelings—never think that, but of yours! Why should you care for me, Katrine? What is there about me to attract a girl like you? I kick myself for my boldness and self-confidence; but at least, dear, you shall not be worried. Be sure of that! No thought of me must interfere with what seems best for you, and your happiness. Keep that thought before you, dear, through all the hours which carry you across the sea, and find courage in it. No happiness can come to me, which leaves you empty or dissatisfied!”

Katrine folded the letter, replaced it in its envelope, and sat on the side of her bunk staring vacantly into space. For the first time the reading of a letter from Jim had left behind a feeling of disappointment and jar. He had struck a wrong note, and one which awoke in her a feeling of resentment. Surely now, when she was actually on her way, he should have hidden his doubts and affected an even stronger confidence and determination. She had looked forward to the receipt of this letter, expecting to be cheered, assured; now she could have found it in her heart to wish that it had not arrived! Jim Blair, depressed and doubtful, was an unfamiliar figure, with which she had no association. From the beginning of their correspondence it had been his assurance, this breezy self-confidence, amounting almost to audacity, which had captured her imagination; now when she needed it most that assurance had failed!

Katrine laid herself down and made a pretence of sleep, which fatigue presently turned into reality. She was awakened by the ringing of the first dinner bell, and lengthened out the process of dressing by a bath, and an elaborate re-arrangement of hair. She also displayed an unusual self-abnegation in the matter of the mirror, so that when the last gong rang, her toilette was still incomplete, and Mrs Mannering sailed off alone, clasping jet bracelets round bony wrists.

Even when she had the cabin to herself Katrine showed no anxiety to hurry. The plain truth was that she dreaded entering the saloon, and facing the meeting which lay ahead. Until that afternoon she had looked forward with eagerness to the arrival of Captain Bedford, whose society would disperse the feeling of loneliness which is never more acute than in the midst of a crowd. He was the Middletons’ friend, Jim’s friend; reported to be good, staid, steady-going; not too young, straight as a die, and a splendid soldier,—in short an elder-brother-sort-of-man, agreeably free from romance. They would meet, not as strangers, but with such a bond of common interests, such a certainty of future friendship, as would carry them in a bound past the initial stages of acquaintanceship. She had counted the hours until Port Said should be reached, and now! here she was sitting dawdling in her cabin, dreading to leave it, and face what lay ahead...

Could that be Captain Bedford—that man with the tanned face, whose personality among a crowd of strangers had asserted itself with such magnetic force; whose eyes had held her own captive, against her struggling will? Surely it was but one chance to a hundred! There had been other men in that group, other men hanging about the hotel; tall, bronzed, soldier-like men by the dozen, any one of whom might even now be sitting in the place next to her own in the saloon, wondering, with a tepid curiosity, when Miss Beverley would appear!

It was stupid of Mrs Mannering to have suggested the possibility; not only stupid, but officious, as were also her after insinuations. Katrine flushed, as she recalled her own momentary impulse at confession. Protection was not needed: even if Captain Bedford were different from what she had expected, she could deal with the situation without help from others; could see as little or as much of him as she desired.

She rose, with sudden determination, cast a last look in the glass, and walked resolutely towards the saloon. She was late, for the second course was already being cleared away, and a steady hum of conversation rose from the crowded tables. Katrine steered her way to her own seat at the far end of the great room, a graceful figure, with head held high, and flushed, frowning face. The diners followed her with their eyes, and commented among themselves.

“Fine girl—beautiful eyes! Holds herself well. Pretty, but too tempery for my taste... Pity she mixes herself up with that Vernon brute. Expect she’s used to a Bohemian set. Beverley’s sister, I’m told... Author fellow who married Grizel Dundas. Ever met her? The most fascinating little witch! Could smile the heart out of a stone wall. Might have married any one she liked, instead of chucking away a fortune for the sake of a scribbler...”

Katrine pursued her way unconscious of criticisms, which, if overheard, would have accentuated the “tempery” expression. Her heart was beating with unaccustomed quickness, she kept her eyes averted from her own empty seat, and—the seat beyond! Even at the moment of stopping she would not look, but a tall figure rose suddenly, hand shot out, a voice spoke, level and expressionless: “Miss Beverley, I believe!”

It was he! Once more Katrine met the gaze of grey eyes, curiously light in the brown face; once more felt the sudden, half-fearful thrill.

“Captain Bedford! I—I think I saw you on shore this afternoon.”

“At the hydrant. Yes!” He seated himself after her. “I enjoyed your enjoyment. It’s an amusing sight when one is new to the East. Has the voyage been pleasant so far?”

The words were pronounced with an amount of hesitation which comforted Katrine, by their betrayal of the fact that the nervousness was not all on her side. She made a determined effort to regain composure, and talk in natural, easy fashion.

“Quite, thank you. My powers as a sailor are untried; there has been no excuse to feel ill. And I’m luxuriating in the heat. I may have too much of that soon... I hope you are better!”

“Quite fit, thanks. Have you made any friends on board?”

Katrine took note of the hasty dismissal of the health topic. It was no doubt a painful subject, and one which he was naturally anxious to forget. She turned her head with an involuntary scrutinising glance, and had an impression of a long, lean jaw, dun-coloured hair, and a line of eyebrow, unexpectedly dark. The whole effect was too thin and lined to look robust after the florid men at home, but was nevertheless instinct with force. Reassured she looked away, and attacked the food on her plate.

“I have spoken to three people. My room-mate for one—an elderly woman, rather a character. She is afflicted with a devouring curiosity which it amuses me to balk. Then she lets off steam by confiding in me! I know to a penny how much she has a year, and what her husband died of, and her son’s virtues and failings, and her plans for the rest of her life... It’s a bore sometimes, but she’s kind! I’m beginning to like her. Then there are two men—” She felt, rather than saw, the deepening of interest, the slight turn of the head. “One sits at the next table. Don’t look now! Fair, handsome; by the girl in blue. He spoke to me the first day; introduced himself, and was rather—startlingly—frank! He is evidently an experienced traveller who leaves nothing to chance. He suggested that we should... What do you think he suggested?”

Their eyes met, hers with a laugh; his stern, with a kindling light which boded danger.

“I have no idea. I’d rather not guess.”

“That we should arrange what he was pleased to call ‘a steamship flirtation,’ which consisted of an arrangement to spend practically the whole time together, growing increasingly sentimental during the voyage, but only during the voyage! On landing we were to part with a ‘Good-bye, pleased to have met you,’ and mutually disappear into space.—It was just a thoughtful arrangement for amusement en route, like providing oneself with an interesting book. I discovered on enquiry that he had already proposed the same arrangement to one or two other girls, so that I had not even the consolation of coming first. I refused with thanks, but judging by appearances the blue girl was more amiable. He has not spoken to me since.”

Captain Bedford looked across the table with a set jaw. The subject of conversation was too much occupied with his neighbour to be conscious of that glance, but Katrine saw it, and mentally noted that this man’s anger would be no light thing.

“I think,” he said grimly, “it is a good thing you are no longer alone!” Then, after a pause, he added a question. “And the other man?”

“Ah! I wonder. Perhaps you will think that is worse still. I hope you won’t!” Katrine was conscious of a moment of actual nervousness; she played with her knife and fork, waited until the conversation swelled to a louder pitch, and turning towards him spoke in a whisper. “The other man is dying of consumption. He is also drunk every night in the card-room. No other woman will look at him. They cut me because I do. We are great friends.”

Again their eyes met, but this time it was her turn to look grave, while he smiled a smile of unexpected sweetness.

“He was with you, I think, this afternoon beside that hydrant. I’m glad you are kind to him.”

Katrine was conscious of a great relief. Her spirits rose; she straightened herself with an agreeable tingling of blood, caught a glance directed to her from afar, and divined, with a woman’s content, that she was looking her best. She drew her breath in a soft, fluttering sigh.

“Ah! I’m so glad. I was afraid you’d be shocked. And you will help? He needs a man friend—a strong man—who will be kind, and not judge. And you can be with him more, do so much more than I.”

“I’m afraid he is very ill.”

The tone, like the words, seemed lacking in fervour. Katrine had spoken with so intimate an appeal for help that she could not resist a momentary chill. She sat silent, wondering if she had been too quick to claim the privileges of friendship, recalling for her own comfort Jim Blair’s words: “A curt, shy manner.” That was the explanation! Only manner. The deep, smiling glance had already pledged help. She might be satisfied of its fulfilment.

After dinner Bedford joined her on deck. The vessel was steaming its slow course through the canal, and Katrine leaned over the rail gazing at the monotonous banks, listening to her companion’s explanatory conversation with difficult attention. She was so much more interested in himself than in geographical facts; she wanted to talk of himself, his health, of his winter’s experiences!

“Six miles an hour... Even if we put on full steam we could go no faster, for the bed is so narrow that if the screw revolves too rapidly, it merely draws the water backwards. Extra depth would be even more valuable than extra width. Years ago I was on board the Ophir, and we entered the canal to find a German vessel run aground. For five days we were stuck there until sixty-three vessels were waiting to get through.”

“Sixty-three!” Katrine was startled out of her indifference. “For five days! What did you do?”

“Fifty-five of the boats flew the English flag. Their passengers amused themselves playing cricket and polo in the desert. The others—swore!”

“But—” Katrine looked blank, “it might have been dreadful! Suppose there had been a war! What would they have done then?”

Captain Bedford smiled, but with a slight curl of the lip.

“Played cricket still, and—muddled through! When do we do anything else! In 1882, when Arabi was upsetting things in Egypt we sent a string of gunboats and transports along the canal and one ran aground. If she had lain in the middle of the channel instead of at the side—well! Wolseley’s plans might not have come off. As it was, she lay near enough to the bank to allow the others to be towed past with ropes.”

“Really? Yes. How interesting!” murmured Katrine vaguely. In the pause which followed she was conscious of a sound like that of a suppressed laugh, and turning round beheld her companion’s eyes twinkling with an amusement so infectious that she laughed in sympathy.

“Well, but I’m not interested!” she confessed boldly. “There is so much else... Now that we have passed Port Said, I feel quite near to India, and there are so many personal things that I am longing to ask.—It is months since you have seen them all, but for me it has been years. Five years since Dorothea sailed, and she is my nearest friend. You know her intimately, of course. And Jack! Shall I find them changed?”

“In outward appearance? Yes! India ages; but they are the sort that keep young at heart. Jack wears well; growing a trifle grey perhaps; she is too thin, and the boy is like her,—all spirit, too little flesh. Amusing little rascal!”

“Yes.” Katrine resumed her former position, arms resting on the rail, head turned aside. The Lake of Menzaleh stretched to the western horizon, its surface dotted with fishing boats, and covered with vast flocks of pelicans, flamingoes, and duck, which, unlike the fishermen, had caught all the fish they desired, and were now settling for the night. There was a strangeness, an unreality about the scene, which gave it the substance of a dream.

“And—Captain Blair?” Katrine queried softly.

It was an effort to introduce the name, but she was determined to do so; nay, more, a mysterious impulse seemed to urge her to intimate something of the true position, to let this man realise that she and Jim Blair were more to each other than mere hearsay acquaintances. She stared before her, her profile pale in the waning light. “I have never seen him, but, through Dorothea, we know each other quite well. He has written to me,—been so kind—sent me brasses—”

“Yes.”

“So, of course, I am interested! Is he nice?”

Captain Bedford smiled.

“Nice! What composes a woman’s idea of ‘nice’? Honestly, it is not exactly the word I should have chosen as a description!”

She turned her head, alert and startled.

“You don’t like him?”

“Oh, pardon me, I do!” He considered a moment, then added with emphasis. “Extremely. As a matter of fact, more than any other fellow in the regiment, but ‘nice’ seems to picture a different type. He is not handsome.”

“Oh, I know! What does that matter?” Katrine’s voice took an impatient tone. “Every one says the same thing,—Dorothea, you, himself,—and it is so unilluminating! I have asked so often for a description, and it has never gone further than that: ‘He is not handsome!’”

Captain Bedford laughed.

“That must be because he has no distinctive features. What would describe him, would apply equally well to a dozen others. Isn’t that often the case? Take these men on board!—how many of them could you describe to me so that I could pick them out of the ruck?”

“But I don’t like people who are alike!” objected Katrine pettishly. “I wanted Captain Blair to be different. However, I shall soon be able to judge for myself. Handsomeness doesn’t matter, but personality does. I can feel in a minute whether I am going to care for a person or not. I want to care for—Dorothea’s friends!”

Captain Bedford did not answer; he stood tall and straight by her side, his face set in a mask-like composure, but Katrine was conscious that he understood the implication. His silence was more eloquent than words.

The dusk fell; out of the glare of the vessel’s searchlight the banks glided by, melting into the great desert beyond. Katrine bade her companion good-night, and retired early to rest. Mrs Mannering had not yet descended, and for once Katrine regretted her company, and ceaseless flow of conversation. Her own thoughts were out of control. It was only by an effort that she could concentrate them on Jim Blair, as was her custom in moments of leisure, for Jim had contradicted himself, and blurred his own image, while another personality had sprung vividly into life. She fell asleep with Jim’s name on her lips, wafting towards him mental messages of hope, but when dreams came, she dreamt of grey eyes in a sunburnt face, and waking before dawn, lay conscious, seeing them once again.

Chapter Twenty Three.

The view on reaching the deck the next morning was strangely impressive to Katrine’s unaccustomed eyes. The sun’s rays flooded the great waste of sand, a limitless expanse crossed by ridges of barren hill. Not a tree or a blade of grass was in sight. All that Katrine had read and imagined of desert places had not prepared her for such absolute dearth, and the thought of her own green, sweet-smelling land came back to her with the traveller’s first pang of home-sickness. A clergyman father was discoursing to a young son and daughter on the probable cause which had transformed the once fertile Lower Egypt and Palestine into their present and poverty. Katrine, listening with a wandering attention, gained an impression of camels versus horses. The Egyptians, declared the cleric, were a race of horsemen, owning sheep and cattle, cultivating the soil. Palm trees shaded the surface, and extracted dew from the air. Later, following the dominion of the Pharaohs, bands of nomadic Arabs wandered over the land with herds of camels, which consumed young trees, in preference to grass. The centuries passed, and as the old trees died, and no new ones survived to take their places, the exposed grass withered and died. The clergyman proceeded to illustrate his theories by pointing out the results of cutting down the forests of Australia, and Katrine went down to breakfast, recalling the garden at The Glen, with the shining drops of water standing on every leaf and twig, the sweet, moist smell of the earth. Already with this first sight of the East, England had become dearer, more beautiful.

Captain Bedford had not appeared. Katrine knew a pang of disappointment at the sight of his empty place, but each moment which passed seemed to deepen a nervous shrinking at the thought of meeting. Had she said too much last night, been too confiding, presumed too much on his help? She must be careful to show that she exacted nothing. It was pleasant, of course, to have some one on board to whom one could appeal in an emergency, but companionship was another matter. She must keep out of his way. She hurried through her breakfast, reached the deck with a gasp of relief, and ensconced her chair in the quietest corner of the shady side of the deck. Gradually, as the next hour passed by, the chairs around her were filled, until she sat hedged in, and hidden from the passing glance. A book served as a screen, behind which she could study her companions, and peer nervously at each newcomer. An hour passed before Captain Bedford came in sight, looking taller, browner than ever, in a loose white suit. Katrine spied him afar off, caught the quick turn of his head, searching the rows of chairs, and involuntarily bent lower to conceal her face from view. She kept her head bent, the blood rising in her cheeks, until a child’s cry, followed by a general ripple of laughter from the surrounding throng, roused her curiosity. She recognised the cry as coming from an urchin of three or four years, a noisy, obstreperous morsel, especially abhorred by elderly passengers, and raising her head beheld him swinging with clasped hand from the end of Bedford’s coat, his small fat feet kicking viciously at the white trousered legs. The brilliant idea of annoying a new-comer had occurred to the imp just at the moment when the Captain happened to pass by, and for the moment the situation was his own. Only for a moment; then a strong, lean hand detached his grasp, and lifting him as lightly as a giant would lift a pigmy brought him round face to face. Then the lookers-on beheld an amusing scene, as regarding him the while with a calm, expressionless face, the big man taught the youngster a lesson out of his own book. Gently, deliberately he swung him to and fro by the tails of his own short coat, reversed him slowly, so that for a breathless moment he dangled by his feet, balanced him by the chin, tucked him under one arm, brought him out beneath the other, and finally swung him over one shoulder, and dropped him lightly as a feather upon the deck.

The urchin staggered against the gunwale, and gaped bewilderment. Up till now, frowns and threats had been his only punishment, and to these he was scornfully impervious. “They” were always “going to,” but “they” never “did.” To provoke a storm of invective was the deliberate object of his tricks; he pranced the deck during its delivery, rejoicing in his triumph, but now for the first time he had met his master. He stood staring, his fat face blank with surprise, while the onlookers chuckled approval, seeing themselves avenged in this humiliation of a common enemy.

As Bedford straightened himself, his eyes met Katrine’s, and contracted in quick recognition. The flushed, laughing face stood out in charming contrast among the pallid, elderly throng, but the laughter was replaced by embarrassment, as scattering apologies to right and left, Bedford made a bee line towards her through the serried chairs, and seated himself on the deck at her feet.

“Morning, Miss Beverley! I was wondering where you had hidden yourself!”

“Good morning. Thank you very much! I’ve wondered several times how one would be able to endure the Red Sea, and Jackey at the same time, but he will have no spirit left in him, after that trouncing! He deserved it, little wretch, but—are you always as drastic in your retaliations?”

Sitting on the deck, his hands clasped round his knees, looking up smiling into her face, he looked young, almost boyish, despite the crow’s-feet round his eyes, the powdering of grey above his ears. Katrine felt young too, lapped with a delicious sense of well-being. To one who had never before been out of England it was an excitement just to be able to wear dainty white clothes, to sit screened beneath double awnings, looking out on a blaze of light. It added to her content that her companion looked so young, that his eyes twinkled when he smiled. The night before his face had shown lines, which she had interpreted as signs of the suffering of the past months, but this morning he looked rested and refreshed.

“Oh, that nipper! We shall be good pals after this. He only needed a lesson. I like kiddies,” he said easily. The fingers which had swung the sturdy youngster with such ease, flicked daintily at a scattering of dust on his sleeve. Katrine noticed the shape of the fingers, long, pointed, the nails filbert-shaped, and carefully manicured. His toilette suggested a consideration of ease above fashion, but the hands were evidently tended with care. The woman in her approved the distinction.

As Katrine looked round the deck she noticed more than one pair of eyes riveted upon her in curious scrutiny, but neither Mrs Mannering nor Vernon Keith were in sight. She divined that the latter was deliberately keeping out of her way, and struggled after regret. She was anxious to introduce him to Captain Bedford, at the same time there was no denying that a tête-à-tête was more agreeable than a triologue.

“Sister Anne, Sister Anne, is there anybody coming?” said the deep bass voice in her ear, and she turned towards him with a shrug.

“No! But I was looking to see if there were! I want to introduce you to Mr Keith and Mrs Mannering, the lady who shares my cabin.”

He did not reply, and Katrine looking down in surprise, caught a frowning of the forehead and pursing of the lips which betrayed obvious disapproval. He met her glance, and smiled back with an attempt at alacrity which was far from convincing.

“Certainly. If you wish—”

“You don’t want to know them? You would rather not?”

He frowned again, hesitating over the words.

“Honestly, I don’t. I am not in a sociable mood. I look upon these few days at sea as a holiday, when there is no reason why I should exert myself against my will. I was relieved to find that there are so few military people on board, and if a man joins a ship half-way, doesn’t play bridge, and abjures deck games, it’s an easy matter to be left alone. I promised myself never to enter the smoke-room until we reach Bombay, or to make an unnecessary acquaintance, but naturally your friends must be the exception. Only—there’s plenty of time! Don’t drag me into a vortex of sociability.”

Katrine laughed at that, but the laugh turned into a grimace.

“There is no vortex around met It comes to this, that if you know me and my friends, you will know no one else! Mr Keith is taboo. I’ve explained why, and Mrs Mannering is—is—” The while she sought for words, the blood rose in her cheek. She was embarrassingly conscious that Bedford noticed it, and that his interest was heightened thereby.

“Is?” he queried, urging the confidence. “Is?”

“Very nice to me,” continued Katrine desperately, “but—?”

“But?”

Again there was the same impasse. Their eyes met, they laughed together, while Bedford hitched himself a trifle nearer her seat.

“It’s—rather difficult to explain!”

“Obviously! which makes me all the more anxious to find out. Very nice to you, but—?”

“Prom what she said; from what I’ve heard, not always very—nice, herself!”

“I see!” Bedford’s jaw lengthened with a gravity which was the obvious cloak of laughter. Katrine flushed still deeper, feeling countrified and raw, but it was true that Mrs Mannering chummed with the fastest women on board, and that the stray fragments of their conversation which she had heard had been far from savoury. She tilted her head with a gesture of offence.

“I am afraid you think me a prig!”

The grey eyes dwelt on her face with a thoughtful scrutiny.

“Prig! Do I? I am not versed in prigs, but I hardly imagine that they would be likely to make your somewhat unconventional selection of friends!” He swung himself gently to and fro, his lips curving in a humorous smile. “So we are to be ostracised, are we,—you and I, and the Waster, and the woman who is not—nice! Left to our own devices, by this very worthy, commonplace crowd? That’s good! Thank heaven for that. I think we can contrive to have a fairly agreeable time. Prom my own point of view it’s a gain, but you are young, and it’s your first voyage. You may regret the crowd.”

Katrine considered. Certainly the voyage so far had been strikingly different from her expectations on embarking. In imagination she had seen herself the centre of merry parties on deck, dancing beneath the awnings, competing in deck sports, forming friendships with young people of her own age, but there were few young people on board, and so far there had been no dancing. The men played cricket on the sunny side of the deck, leaving the more shady regions for the loungers who did nothing; quoits and bean bags had each their votaries, but a single refusal, prompted by shyness rather than disinclination, had shut her out from their ranks, and henceforth she had been left severely alone, labelled undesirable, and mentally coupled with two of the most unpopular people on board. It had been a disappointment. Always when looking forward to a visit to India, the voyage had loomed large as one of the most exciting portions of the whole, but the first days at sea had been far from exciting. Suppose that Captain Bedford had not come on board, that she had been left to the tender mercies of Vernon Keith and Mrs Mannering, knowing full well that even while they talked with her, the one was longing for the smoke-room, and the other for bridge, and spicy recollections—how long, how drearily long would have seemed the days which were yet to come! If Bedford had not come on board; but he had come; he was even now sitting at her feet, scanning her face with intent eyes. In his presence disappointment became a problematical thing; she knew herself to be abundantly content.

“I am quite happy,” she said simply. “I have plenty of gaiety ahead, and I can understand that you want to be quiet. It must have been—hard, to be so ill, and to have been constantly thrown back as you were. Feverish attacks are so exhausting.”

An indefinite murmur was the only response. Katrine noted a sudden stiffening of the lines of the figure: he ceased to swing to and fro, and sat grave, almost stern, avoiding her glance.

“Miss Beverley,” he said suddenly. “May I ask you a favour? I am grateful for your sympathy, but the subject is painful.—I had rather avoid it. For the moment I am well, as you see—will you humour me by forgetting anything else? It’s a holiday time, you know. A few days stolen out of the year in which to laze, and be happy, and—drift! Can’t we leave it at that?”

“Of course. Of course. I’m sorry!” cried Katrine eagerly. Her eyes were soft with tenderness and remorse, for this man’s malady was of no ordinary type. She knew him to have been threatened by a fate a hundred times worse than death, and reproached herself for having touched so sore a wound. She nodded a glad agreement.

“Yes! we will. We will just take up our friendship from now, and be like children living in the hour. I’ve had a bad time, too, and for the first time for years I’m free from responsibility. It’s a heady feeling, and I feel capable of being as frivolous as you please. Forward be our watchword!”

“Right oh!” he called cheerily, and stretching himself stumbled to his feet. “Then let’s go for a walk! One gets cramped sitting cooped in here, and there are,” he lowered his voice, “so many ears! That looks like a Bedouin camp over there! You are missing all the sights... Come and look...”

Katrine followed eagerly to the prow of the vessel, and beheld a small ferry-boat crossing the canal, laden with a load of vague moving shapes, which on closer investigation proved to be donkeys. On the shore a number of camels were already lying, their fore-legs tied together. As the vessel approached a donkey was pushed from the boat into the water, it went down head first, and emerged a limp and sorry object, which was nevertheless unwilling to go ashore, and struggled feebly to rejoin its companions in the boat. Next moment there was consternation on board the ferry, for the wash of the great steamboat made it rock until men and donkeys had much ado to retain their places. One turbaned figure curled up suddenly at the bottom of the boat with a donkey seated on its lap; the onlookers caught the roll of dark round eyes as the ship sped past. Even in that undignified attitude there was an air of composure about the figure, of placid acceptance of fate, while his companion cast never a glance at the towering ship with the throng of white faces leaning over the rail. To the travellers they themselves might be an unusual sight, but to the Easterners this passing to and fro was an ordinary event, of infinitely less importance than the landing of donkeys!

Suez was an agreeable surprise, with its square white houses clustered among palm trees, the mountain in the background showing rosy red in the sunshine. The vessel came to rest in the roads, and the passengers who were new to the scene welcomed the arrival of a raft of small boats with their various objects for sale. Bedford pointed out the crates of fresh vegetables for consumption on the voyage, which had come by train from the valley of the Nile, but Katrine had no interest to spare for such mundane articles. Her eyes had caught the gleam of shell and coral, and her eager gesture pointed her out as a probable prey.

“It’s no use saying they are rubbish. I like rubbish!” she declared, brushing aside Bedford’s protest, and nodding her head eagerly in reply to an outstretched hand. “I have some money in my pocket, and I’m pining to spend it. I’ve lived all my life in an English village, remember, and finery goes to my head. Coral suits me, too. Do make him come!”

“Don’t worry. He’ll come fast enough. Do you think you could manage to stand still, and not—prance? He has doubled his prices already, and every additional prance will send them flying still higher. In pity to other buyers—”

“Prance? Who’s prancing?” Katrine turned an indignant face, but suddenly discovering herself perched on the tops of her toes, abandoned the attempt at dignity, and laughed instead. “Don’t preach! This is my holiday. I’m not accustomed to negroes walking up ropes with trays of mysterious gems.—I shall be as excited as ever I please!”

Meantime one of the negroes manning the small craft was deftly making his way towards the main deck. The rope grasped firmly between his great toe and the next, he walked up the halyards bearing the tray of gewgaws with an easy balance, the while the Arab trader leaned his weight on the edge of the boat nearest the ship, making it keel over until the climber could step on board. So swiftly, nimbly, and smilingly, was the feat accomplished that the onlookers had hardly time to realise the wonder of it, before the glittering trays were pushed forward, and, while the hardened traveller shook his head and made off in opposite directions, novices to the East gathered thick as flies round a honey pot.

Katrine fell in love with half a dozen baubles, but her companion noted that they were among the least costly on the tray, pretty, inexpensive bits of colour, such as would satisfy a girl in her teens; the more costly she fingered admiringly, but laid aside with the trained resignation of years. Only one article seemed to exercise a definite temptation, a dainty model of a banjo, in ivory and tortoise-shell, to which her fingers returned once and again.

Bedford watching her smiled over the by-play, convinced that temptation would override prudence, but he discovered his mistake when, with a final sigh, she thrust the dainty morsel aside, and gathering together a few trifles took out her purse to settle the account.

“You are not going to have the banjo then?” he enquired, and she shrugged her shoulders in reply.

“No. It’s absolutely useless, and unnecessary. That’s why I want it, but it can’t be done. These little brooches and chains will do to send home to girl friends, and the coral is for myself. I can’t afford any more.”

Bedford lifted the tortoise-shell, and turned it over daintily with his long, brown fingers.

“But it is good: well made? You consider it worth having?”

“I like it, yes! It’s so pretty. I don’t know if it is too expensive...”

“I was not thinking about the price.” He fixing a gold piece on the tray, and for a moment Katrine held her breath. Was he about to offer her a gift of an article which she had confessed herself unable to buy? She shrank from the disillusionment which the action would bring, but Bedford slid the tortoise-shell into a capacious pocket, without so much as a glance in her direction. Evidently the purchase had been made without any thought of herself. Katrine drew a sigh of relief, and than incontinently sighed again. Of whom was he thinking? Single men in barracks did not indulge in such trifles for themselves, and Bedford’s interest in this special trifle had been of the most detached order. Obviously he had questioned her to find out the feminine point of view, so as to decide whether the offering were worthy of its future recipient! “Whom could it be? I’ll ask Dorothea!” Katrine decided, and dismissed the matter from her mind. But it returned; a dozen times that day she found herself speculating on the personality of the fair unknown, on the exact relationship which existed between her and her own escort. They could not be definitely engaged, or some of the Indian letters would have mentioned the fact. Perhaps his health had prevented him from speaking... Perhaps now that he was stronger... She tried to recall all she had heard concerning the few girls in the station. And of course there were the married women! Bedford might wish to take back remembrances to some woman who had shown him hospitality—to Dorothea herself, for example. Katrine mentally insisted on this point, but in her heart she did not believe it. There was something in the manner in which Bedford had thrown down that coin, in the silence in which he had pocketed his purchase, which to her feminine sensibilities betrayed a deeper interest.

“I will ask Dorothea!” Katrine decided once more, but before an hour was over curiosity had mastered her, and she was questioning Bedford about every woman in the station. The result was as illuminating as such enquiries usually are, and no more so, for Bedford had a good word to say of each. When she had exhausted her list of questions, Katrine sat silent, staring before her, her face grave and set. Bedford looked at her askance, and his eyes danced, but all traces of amusement were carefully banished from his voice.

“You look very serious. What are you thinking about so deeply?”

“I was thinking of what you have said. I had no idea, from my letters, that you had so many—girls in the station! That will be very nice.”

“I’m glad you are pleased,” he said suavely, and Katrine incontinently blushed.

That night she lay awake once more, struggling with a depression which she assured herself was well grounded. If there were already several agreeable and fascinating girls in the station, her own arrival could not be of such moment as she had expected. Dorothea would have other friends; Bedford had apparently one in special. They would not need her, but—Jim would! Jim had declared himself to be impervious to the claims of every other woman. Poor Jim! Katrine checked herself angrily. Why poor? This was the first time she had applied the derogatory epithet to her unknown lover. She made haste to atone for the slip by an unusual endearment. “Dear Jim!” She repeated to herself, “Dear Jim!” and with a rush of loyalty and gratitude her heart opened to the memory of her unknown lover’s tenderness and understanding.

“Nothing can matter to me while I have Jim!” she told herself thankfully, and fell asleep holding fast to the thought.

Chapter Twenty Four.

Katrine’s efforts to bring Bedford and Keith together seemed doomed to failure. She managed the introduction indeed, but the attempts at conversation which followed were not promising for future relationships, and for the rest of the day the two men avoided each other sedulously. It was duty, pure and simple, which made Katrine waylay Keith after dinner, and appear to take it for granted that he would give her his society for the customary half-hour’s promenade round the deck, when in reality her only longing was to escape, and enjoy a continuation of her talk with the newer friend. Keith was in a black mood also; grim, unsmiling. His haggard eyes surveyed her with a scrutiny that was the reverse of friendly.

“Still busy at your Reform Bill, I see! I had no idea you could be so persistent!”

“Don’t be nasty!”

“Nasty!” he laughed harshly. “What a bread-and-butter Miss it is, with her ‘nice’ and ‘nasty,’ and little cut-and-dried maxims and beliefs! One can just see the English village where you have lived, and the worthy Victorians who have lived around. You knew about six families in all, I presume, and lived in terror of what they would say; and they also lived in terror of you. There is no monarchy so absolute as the Mrs Grundy of a country town. And you went on Sunday to the Church—rather a low church I should say, breathing forth enmity equally against ritualism and dissent—went twice a day—”

“And Sunday School! Don’t forget Sunday School.”

“Ah! Sunday School. I’d forgotten the existence of Sunday Schools. That revives old memories. I went to one myself in prehistoric times. Seems odd, doesn’t it? Can you imagine me a small, curled darling in a Sunday School class? It was a dank, underground cellar of a place, shaped like an amphitheatre, with seats rising one above another. We infants sat bunched together in a corner, and the teacher stood before us on the flat. She was a plain soul, with three large warts on one cheek. I used to gaze at them fascinated, and ponder what could be done. The warts interested me more than her words, but I made gallant attempts at attention. We were bribed to attend,—one little card with an illuminated text for good behaviour and attention; so many cards, one small book; so many small books, a prize at Christmas. I actually won one prize. Can you imagine me gaining a Sunday School prize?”

Katrine regarded him thoughtfully with her deep blue eyes. The slighting, almost contemptuous tone in which he spoke seemed to hurt her more for his sake than for her own, as proving the invariable bitterness of his mind. She was the only soul on board who had sought his friendship, and even to her—

“Do you ever think—?” she stammered, confused and shy, yet possessed by a gallant resolve to improve the occasion. “Do you ever remember the things you heard?”

“Bible stories!” He laughed again, his harsh, unmirthful laugh. “My good girl, is it possible to forget? They are too terribly true. I’ve seen them acted before my eyes. I’ve lived through them myself. Heavens! how many of those old stories I’ve lived through! I’ve eaten of the fruit of knowledge—a liberal repast, and as a result been turned out of my Eden; I’ve wandered in far lands; I’ve defrauded my neighbour, and sold my birthright for, not gold, not silver, not even a mess of pottage—for a foaming poison which has killed body and soul! I’ve sung my penitential psalms—and, gone on sinning! I’ve sung my Song of Solomon, also, I must not forget that!”

He met Katrine’s eyes, widely questioning, and replied with a defiant flash. “You are astonished! You did not associate romance with such a death’s head of a man! Nevertheless it is true. There was a woman: one woman, only one! I worshipped her for five long years; I worship her still, but all the same I did her to death. Oh, let me explain! It was nothing actionable. I am not a prisoner fleeing from justice. There is no escape from the court before which I shall be tried. I would have killed myself a thousand times over sooner than have lifted a hand against her. She was my wife, you see, and I loved her, but I broke her heart. I believed that in the joy of her I could break loose from the devil which possessed me. I did go free for a few months, and she married me, poor child! knowing nothing. Then, He came back, mightier than before. The first time she saw me—I may live through a thousand hells, and know nothing more awful than the memory of those eyes! She told me herself, weeping in my arms the next day, that she could not love, she could not even endure, ‘that man!’ If he came back—if she saw him again.—I promised; I swore. A hundred times over I promised and a hundred times over I failed, and her love changed to fear, fear and dread, and a shrinking of flesh. She was a frail thing, and she lived in terror of ‘that man.’ In terror of him she died. When she drew her last breath he was drunk, lying helpless downstairs—”

“Oh, don’t!” gasped Katrine painfully. “Don’t tell me! I didn’t ask.—I don’t want to hear... Don’t remind yourself—”

“Remind! Do you think I can forget? I am not harrowing myself by conjuring up sleeping ghosts. That kind of ghost never sleeps. It makes no difference to me whether I speak of it, or am silent. I have told you for—” he turned towards her with a twisted smile, “your own sake! You are a good girl, but crude. When you have had time to think for yourself, you’ll make a fine woman. You’ve been living in a shell. Let yourself go! Forget what you’ve been taught, and think things out for yourself. Meantime, I appreciate your good intentions, but—leave me alone!” Suddenly his eyes blazed. “Great Heavens! If She couldn’t help me, what can you do!”

He wheeled round and strode away, leaving Katrine to pass through some of the most poignant moments of her life. Never before had she come into such intimate touch with human misery. Compared with this anguish of remorse, Martin’s grief over the loss of his girl wife seemed a sacred and beautiful thing. Never before had she realised at once so overpowering a longing to help, and so profound a conviction of helplessness. To be of use to a soul in such straits, one must needs have suffered also, have struggled, and overcome: have risen to a height far beyond that on which she now stood. Katrine knew it, acknowledged it to her own soul, with a humility which was in itself a prayer.

She made her way to the quietest part of the deck, and leaned over the rail, trembling with emotion. Twenty-six years of placid, uneventful existence, of calm looking on at life, and then suddenly here she was, in the maelstrom, each new day bringing with it some new and poignant emotion! She felt dazed, bewildered; filled with humiliation.

When presently Bedford strolled up nonchalant and smiling, a cigarette in his mouth, his expression changed swiftly as he saw her, and Katrine flinched before his glance. Could she have seen herself she would have been astonished, as he was, at the beauty of the pale, tremulous face.

To her relief he asked no questions, but averting his eyes talked easily on matter-of-fact subjects, not waiting for replies, but content simply to fill in the time till self-possession returned. Katrine divined as much, and did not trouble to listen. She also was waiting for self-possession, but only so as to be able to confide and be comforted. That Bedford could invariably find the right panacea for a wound was a fact already acknowledged with delight, and to-night the need of him was pressing. Her inattention grew increasingly obvious, until at length he ceased speaking, and looked down at her with questioning eyes.

“You don’t want to talk! Shall I stay, and be quiet, or would you rather I went away, and left you alone?”

“Stay, please, and talk—only, for the moment my mind is so full of one thing, that I can’t think of anything else. That poor man! he’s been telling me his story.—I can’t repeat it, but he has also been scorching me for my interference. I deserved it, I suppose, for my self-sufficiency, but—it hurt! Growing pains! Do you remember?”

“Poor little girl!” he said simply; so simply, so kindly, that there could be no offence in the familiarity. “I was afraid you had given yourself a stiff road to hoe. I’ve had experience in these cases, and know something about the difficulties. The trouble is that like many reformers you are beginning at the wrong end, trying to doctor his mind, whereas it’s his body that is sick. Drink is a physical disease, and it’s hard luck on its victims that public opinion refuses to realise the fact. Imagine a fellow being called a beast—a degraded beast, disgraceful, disgusting—all the usual terms, because he was suffering from tuberculosis or heart disease! It’s unthinkable, but a poor wretch who has to fight against a physical craving as fierce as the claws of a wild beast, tearing him, literally tearing, not to be quenched except by the very poison which is going to set him craving again,—for one kindly, pitying thought, he gets a hurricane of abuse! You and I know better. We don’t judge; we pity the poor fellow from the bottom of our hearts, but I say—” suddenly his voice changed to a crisp, boylike note, “don’t let’s talk about him to-night! It’s such a ripping night. We can do him no good. Then why spoil our own time? Let’s talk about happy things!” He threw away his cigarette as he spoke, leaned his arms on the rail, and turned his face towards hers with a twinkling appeal. They were close together, and the smiling interchange of glance seemed a good and pleasant thing. Katrine was almost ashamed of the speed with which the mental load slipped away, and disappeared; one glance into the keen grey eyes, and it had vanished into space.

It was good to stand in the warm night, looking out at the glory of the star-lit heavens, at the ripple of phosphorous on the water, but the beauties of nature were but a secondary cause for the content which enfolded her. The primary cause was the presence of the man by her side, the big man with the grave face, and the clear, boylike eyes. Katrine was not given to hasty friendships, but in this case there seemed no preliminary stages to live through, for the moment of meeting had acclaimed a mental understanding, which years of intimacy might have failed to ensure. She forgot that she had been unhappy, and laughed a soft, girlish little laugh, the tinkle of which struck strangely on her own ears. Such a girlish laugh!

“Oh, yes! Let’s! That will be nice... What shall we talk about?”

“Ourselves, of course,” he said promptly; and at that they laughed again. Katrine tilted her head, and met his eyes with a frank, gay glance.

“Wasn’t it Isabel Carnaby who said that there was really no other subject to talk about but ourselves, just as there was really no other dish than bacon for breakfast?”

“What about Lloyd George?”

They laughed gaily, laughed into each other’s eyes with a sense of intimacy which sent the spirits racing upwards with a mysterious intoxication.