I don't like that little buffer," declared Lane grumpily as we walked
on. "He is too fussy and by-your-leave-please for me. Made me get out
all my books yesterday, as if I were an office-boy."

"He feels responsible, I suppose," I ventured.

"Well, who's responsible if I'm not?" demanded the purser hotly. "I've
been at sea fifteen years, and this brat hasn't so much as been sick in
the _Marguerite_, I'll lay. Let him look after his own books. I'm all
right."

It was quite manifest that Lane was decided in his likes and dislikes,
as his unreasonable objection to the second officer had already
discovered to me. The passengers were not visible during the morning,
but in the afternoon I received a message calling me to Mr. Morland's
cabin. I found him seated before a bureau with a docket of papers
before him, and he was civil and abrupt.

"Is there anything you can recommend for sea-sickness, Dr. Phillimore?"
he asked bluntly.

I told him of several remedies which had been tried, and mentioned
cocaine as probably the best, adding that I had little faith in any of
them. He thought a moment.

"Prepare me some cocaine," he said, and with a bow intimated that he
had done with me.

It was civil as I have said, but it was also abrupt. He had the air of
a martinet and the expression of a schoolmaster who set his pupil a
task. But I made up the doses forthwith and let him have them.

Later I saw two figures walking upon the hurricane promenade, one of
which I easily made out as Mr. Morland, and the other was a woman
heavily cloaked in fur. A strong breeze was beating up channel, and as
they stood and faced it the woman put her hand to her hat. But for the
most part they walked to and fro, sometimes in conversation, but often
in silence. Once, at eight bells, I noticed, from my point of
observation, the woman stop, lean across the railing, and point towards
the coast of France, which was fast fading into the gathering mists.
She seemed to speak, her face turned level with her shoulders towards
the man. He put out a hand and snapped his fingers, and they presently
resumed their promenade. The sun had gone down, and darkness was
settling on us; the _Sea Queen_ ploughed steadily westward, her lights
springing out one by one, and the figures on the hurricane deck were
presently merged in shadow. As I leaned over the stern, reflecting, and
contemplating now the dull wash of the water about the screw, I was
conscious of some one