hour ago she had beckoned to Keith as he passed by, and had fed him with
chocolates. He had eaten, smiled, and grimaced, and she had rated him
for his ingratitude. It was impossible that a man could eat chocolates,
and take part in the trivial chit-chat of shipboard, and within sixty
minutes be fighting for his life in those churning waves!

"_It's impossible_!" she cried. "I was talking to him here, an hour
ago. He was well--as well as usual... we talked--he _smiled_! It is
_impossible_ that he can be dead!"

"They may find him yet. It's only a few minutes. Everything is
possible. You can do no good by waiting, dear. Come and sit down!"

But Katrine thrust out her arm, pushing him away once more, shaking her
head. How could she sit down? How think of herself? She leaned her
elbows on the rail, and buried her head in her hands. Her brain was
racing, she was shuddering with suspense, yet through all her misery her
perceptions had grasped one word, and photographed it in lasting
remembrance. "Dear!" Bedford had called her "Dear!"

For a minute there was silence. Then she spoke a few words in so low
and trembling a voice that he had to bend to catch them.

"How? How did he--"

He caught his breath: she heard the sound, and divined that for this man
the worst sting of the tidings lay in the necessity for telling it to
her.

"He ... jumped! There were people about. They saw it. He was walking
about, began to cough, leaned over the rail... Before they grasped what
he was about--"

He stopped short, and Katrine answered with unexpected composure:

"I understand! It overwhelmed him suddenly,--a frenzy of impatience.
He could bear no more. I understand--I think now, I could almost
hope--" She turned suddenly and laid her hand on his arm. The hysteria
of the last minutes had disappeared, she was weak and spent, and
breathlessly subdued. "Take me away, please, where I can't see!"

Bedford half led, half carried. Katrine found herself extended on a
long chair drawn for'ard, to a spot where the bridge cut off all view of
what was happening astern. She was cold, and he was rubbing her hands;
his touch had a magnetic warmth, to which she surrendered with a vague
content. The hands which she had noticed and admired had a beauty of
touch, as well as line. She watched their movements with a mechanical
interest. For the moment there appeared nothing strange in the fact
that this comparative stran