t in the postponed meal. A cup of
tea, a rest, a bath, then the passengers would dress for dinner, and
brushing aside the cloud, declare that, poor beggar! he had not much to
lose. By the morrow the incident would be discreetly banned...

Katrine drank her tea, grateful for it like the rest, her face white and
disfigured by tears. During that long hour of silent waiting she had
looked into life with a terrifying insight. So one could suffer at the
fate of a stranger! How would it be for the _one_ individuality which
made the world? She shrank at the thought, telling herself, as the
untried are pitifully wont to do, that such a possibility was beyond
endurance, and therefore could not be; knowing full well in her heart
that a time must surely come when she in her turn must feel the rack...

Vernon Keith had been the acquaintance of a week; for a week to come she
would look involuntarily for the gaunt form; another week, and in the
glamour of new surroundings his image would fade into obscurity; in a
few months his very name might be forgotten. What she was suffering now
was but shock and regret, impersonal, pitiful regret, but, if it had
been another man--_this_ man, for example, with the brown face, and the
grey eyes, who now sat at her feet--?

Katrine sat up hurriedly, and pushed the hair from her brow. The hand
which held the cup was shaking so violently that Bedford heard, and took
it from her, to place upon the deck.

"Don't you think you could lie down, and get a rest? Shall I bring Mrs
Mannering? You ought to be perfectly quiet and away from the crowd--"

Katrine looked at him vaguely as though only half understanding the
purport of his words.

"Perhaps. Yes. Later on. There was something I wanted to say..." She
was silent for a moment, and then added with the simple inconsequence of
a child, "I'm engaged, you know! Not definitely, but virtually.
Engaged to be married to--a good man! You are good too. I wanted you
to know."

Bedford twisted the teaspoon in his fingers, laid it down at a new
angle, lifted it again. His face was hidden, but Katrine saw the brown
neck flame darkly red against the flannel coat. When he spoke, however,
it was the most calm and level of voices.

"However good he may be, Miss Beverley, he is not good enough for you."

A few minutes later he rose, and walked quietly away in search of Mrs
Mannering.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

The next morning Katrine slept l