Duke and Barker, and
went towards his quarters. It was a warm night for the Atlantic, and
though there was no moon, the stars shone out brightly, their reflection
moving slowly up and down the slopes of the long ocean swell. Claudius
walked aft, and was going to sit down for a few minutes before turning
in, when he was suddenly aware of a muffled female figure leaning
against the taffrail only a couple of paces from where he was. In spite
of the starlight he could not distinguish the person. She was wrapped
closely in a cloak and veil, as if fearing the cold. As it must be one
of the three ladies who constituted the party, Claudius naturally raised
his cap, but fearing lest he had chanced on the Duke's sister, or still
worse, on Miss Skeat, he did not speak. Before long, however, as he
leaned against the side, watching the wake, the unknown remarked that it
was a delightful night. It was Margaret's voice, and the deep musical
tones trembled on the rise and fall of the waves, as if the sounds
themselves had a distinct life and beating in them. Did the dark woman
know what magic lay in her most trivial words? Claudius did not care a
rush whether the night were beautiful or otherwise, but when she said it
was a fine evening, it sounded as if she had said she loved him.

"I could not stay downstairs," she said, "and so when the others went to
bed I wrapped myself up and came here. Is it not too wonderful?"

Claudius moved nearer to her.

"I have been pent up in the Duke's _tabagie_ for at least two hours," he
said, "and I am perfectly suffocated."

"How can you sit in that atmosphere? Why don't you come and smoke on
deck?"

"Oh! it was not only the tobacco that suffocated me to-night, it was the
ideas."

"What ideas?" asked Margaret.

"You have known the Duke a long time," said he, "and of course you can
judge. Or rather, you know. But to hear those two men talk is enough to
make one think there is neither heaven above nor hell beneath." He was
rather incoherent.

"Have they been attacking your favourite theories," Margaret asked, and
she smiled behind her veil; but he could not see that, and her voice
sounded somewhat indifferent.

"Oh! I don't know," he said, as if not wanting to continue the subject;
and he turned round so as to rest his elbows on the taffrail. So he
stood, bent over and looking away astern at the dancing starlight on the
water. There was a moment's silence.

"Tell me," said Margaret at las