atures--only that she was tall and
finely-built. He wondered who the woman could be, for he had not been
informed by Nugent of the engagement of any female attendants.

"Perhaps your case is the same as my own--that you are not looking
forward to the voyage with pleasure?" he said kindly.

Miss Nettle Jimpson uttered a short laugh. "At any rate, you are
starting of your own free will," she said. "At least I suppose so, for I
was watching you when you came aboard just now, and you didn't make any
bones about it. It's different with me. That monkey-faced little devil
on the bridge never gave me the option, but just shipped me like a bale
of goods to suit his own convenience."

"But surely----" Leslie was beginning.

"Oh, don't make any mistake! I was a consenting party as soon as I heard
the terms," Miss Jimpson cut him short, drawing a little nearer. "I'm an
avaricious sort of beast, and the prospect of a quick haul tempted me to
take Captain Brant's practical joke lying down. You see, I've got a
young man in the navy, and it seemed a shorter cut to setting up
housekeeping than serving behind the counter in a draper's shop. I acted
on the spur of the moment, as I always do, and lucky for the captain I
did, or he'd have got his ugly face scratched."

"May I ask what position you hold on board--for what duties you were
engaged?" asked Leslie. The voluble young person puzzled him.

"Oh, I'm a kind of mix between a stewardess and a maid to the lady
passenger, I believe, though that old rascal baited the hook by calling
me a companion."

"The lady passenger?" Leslie repeated blankly.

"Yes, and that leads up to what I wanted to ask you. Why didn't she come
out to the steamer with you? You see, if it's an elopement, it will
smooth it down for me a lot. I'm that romantic I shall be really
interested, instead of grizzling all the time till we get back. Some
hitch in your young lady's getting off, I suppose, as the launch had to
go back to fetch her? Brant has been like a cat on hot bricks ever since
we sighted that little town yonder, lest something should go wrong. I
hope it hasn't, for your sake. I should be sorry for anything in the
shape of an angry parent to break the spell of love's young dream,
having been there myself."

Leslie thought he understood. His dimly-seen companion at the stern-rail
had been "shipped," as she called it, while the ship was lying in the
London docks weeks before, when the original plot