ly injured, though its injuries
were likely to be less easy of repair than those of the Meridiana.

"Still," as a passenger remarked, when she steamed into the dock at
Liverpool, "we might all be at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean
this morning. Just think what columns there would have been in the
newspapers. Imagine Miss Vanderpoel's being drowned."

"I was very rude to Louise, when I found her wringing her hands over
you, and I was rude to Blanche," Bettina said to Mrs. Worthington. "In
fact I believe I was rude to a number of people that night. I am rather
ashamed."

"You called me a donkey," said Blanche, "but it was the best thing you
could have done. You frightened me into putting on my shoes, instead of
trying to comb my hair with them. It was startling to see you march into
the stateroom, the only person who had not been turned into a gibbering
idiot. I know I was gibbering, and I know Marie was."

"We both gibbered at the red-haired man when he came in," said Marie.
"We clutched at him and gibbered together. Where is the red-haired man,
Betty? Perhaps we made him ill. I've not seen him since that moment."

"He is in the second cabin, I suppose," Bettina answered, "but I have
not seen him, either."

"We ought to get up a testimonial and give it to him, because he did
not gibber," said Blanche. "He was as rude and as sensible as you were,
Betty."

They did not see him again, in fact, at that time. He had reasons of his
own for preferring to remain unseen. The truth was that the nearer his
approach to his native shores, the nastier, he was perfectly conscious,
his temper became, and he did not wish to expose himself by any incident
which might cause him stupidly and obviously to lose it.

The maid, Louise, however, recognised him among her companions in the
third-class carriage in which she travelled to town. To her mind, whose
opinions were regulated by neatly arranged standards, he looked morose
and shabbily dressed. Some of the other second-cabin passengers had made
themselves quite smart in various, not too distinguished ways. He had
not changed his dress at all, and the large valise upon the luggage
rack was worn and battered as if with long and rough usage. The woman
wondered a little if he would address her, and inquire after the health
of her mistress. But, being an astute creature, she only wondered this
for an instant, the next she realised that, for one reason or another,
it was clear that he w