ng back, while the red-haired man gave a loud
guffaw and dug him in the ribs.

"Now, now, Freddy--vat's his great weakness--a little bit o' skirt," he
explained to the others, who laughed loudly.

"Coming where?" asked Marcella with pleased interest, though she wished
his face was not so appalling. "Is it tea-time?"

"No. Come an' 'ave a drink," he said.

"Oh, can we get one? I am glad. I missed lunch. You were luckier, I
suppose, as you have been here before and understand the rules. It's
very kind of you."

"I never mind being kind to young ladies," he said, leering at her.
"Look here, you sit down here an' I'll bring you a drink. Then we c'n
have a little talk and get to know each other better."

She sat down, feeling horrible at hating his face when he was so kind.
She heard laughter from the men who had gone a little way up the deck to
a doorway, and then Ole Fred came back with a small tumbler in one hand
and a large one in the other. The small one he put into Marcella's hand.

"Oh--" she began, looking at it doubtfully.

"What's up?" he asked, sitting down very close to her.

"I'm sorry. I wish I'd asked you to bring tea."

"Oh, you can't get tea. Anyway, ship's tea is rotten. Drink that up,
dear. It'll put a bit of go into you. I like young ladies with a bit of
go."

She frowned at him. Then the smell of the stuff in the tumbler was
wafted to her. The green baize door came before her, almost tangible,
and the book-room as it was the night her father died, when last she had
smelt whisky as she and Wullie knelt on the floor beside him.

"Here, take it," she cried, starting up wildly. "Take it away! I'd die
if I drank it."

"What in hell--" began the man, staring after her.

But she was already down the companion-way and rushing towards her
cabin. All the misery of her father's death and illness had swept back
upon her. It was quite true, as Aunt Janet had said, that nothing would
kill that pain until she had schooled herself not to feel. She felt the
literal, physical weight of all that misery as she ran along the
alley-way, her eyes swimming, her face flushed.

Her cabin--Number 9--being the one with the porthole, was at the end of
the alley-way. The door of Number 8 was open into the passage, but she
was too blinded by her emotion to notice it, and blundered into it. It
was badly swung, and slammed inwards. She heard a smash inside the
cabin, and someone said "Damn!" It was exactly the same "Da