on a wrapper. The room
was dark when she opened the door. There was a little light in the
chart-room, from the binnacle lantern. The door at the top of the
companionway was always closed at night; the light came through the
window near the wheel."

She had kept up very well to this point, telling her story calmly and
keeping her voice down. But when she reached the actual killing of the
Danish maid, she went to pieces. She took to shivering violently, and
her pulse, under my fingers, was small and rapid. I mixed some
aromatic spirits with water and gave it to her, and we waited until she
could go on.

For the first time, then, I realized that I was clad only in shirt and
trousers, with a handkerchief around my head where the accident in the
hold had left me with a nasty cut. My bare feet were thrust into
down-at-the-heel slippers. I saw Miss Lee's eyes on me, and colored.

"I had forgotten," I said uncomfortably. "I'll have time to find my
coat while she is recovering. I have been so occupied--"

"Don't be a fool," Mrs. Johns said brusquely. "No one cares how you
look. We only thank Heaven you are alive to look after us. Do you
know what we have been doing, locked in down here? We have been--"

"Please, Adele!" said Elsa Lee. And Mrs. Johns, shrugging her
shoulders, went back to her salts.

The rest of the story we got slowly. Briefly, it was this. Karen,
having made her protest at being called at such an hour, had put on a
wrapper and pinned up her hair. The light was on. The stewardess said
she heard a curious chopping sound in the main cabin, followed by a
fall, and called Karen's attention to it. The maid, impatient and
drowsy, had said it was probably Mr. Turner falling over something, and
that she hoped she would not meet him. Once or twice, when he had been
drinking, he had made overtures to her, and she detested him.

The sound outside ceased. It was about five minutes since the bell had
rung, and Karen yawned and sat down on the bed. "I'll let her ring
again," she said. "If she gets in the habit of this sort of thing, I'm
going to leave." The stewardess asked her to put out the light and let
her sleep, and Karen did so. The two women were in darkness, and the
stewardess dozed, for a minute only. She was awakened by Karen
touching her on the shoulder and whispering close to her ear.

"That beast is out there," she said. "I peered out, and I think he is
sitting on the compani