y, for she had
appeared neither at lunch nor at dinner as the vessel kept on its way
after leaving Boulogne; and when he ventured to ask for her Mrs. Kenton
answered with embarrassment that she was not feeling very well. He asked
for her at lunch, but not at dinner, and when he had finished that meal
he went on the promenade-deck, and walked forlornly up and down, feeling
that he had been a fool.

Mrs. Kenton went below to her daughter's room, and found Ellen there
on the sofa, with her book shut on her thumb at the place where the
twilight had failed her.

"Ellen, dear," her mother said, "aren't you feeling well?"

"Yes, I'm well enough," said the girl, sensible of a leading in the
question. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing. Only--only I can't make your father behave naturally with
Mr. Breckon. He's got his mind so full of that mistake we both came so
near making that he can't think of anything else. He's so sheepish
about it that he can hardly speak to him or even look at him; and I must
confess that I don't do much better. You know I don't like to put myself
forward where your father is, and if I did, really I don't believe I
could make up my mouth to say anything. I did want Lottie to be nice
to him, but Lottie dislikes him so! And even Boyne--well, it wouldn't
matter about Boyne, if he didn't seem to be carrying out a sort of
family plan--Boyne barely answers him when he speaks to him. I don't
know what he can think." Ellen was a good listener, and Mrs. Kenton,
having begun, did not stop till she had emptied the bag. "I just know
that he didn't get off at Boulogne because he wanted to stay on with us,
and thought he could be useful to us at The Hague, and everywhere; and
here we're acting as ungratefully! Why, we're not even commonly polite
to him, and I know he feels it. I know that he's hurt."

Ellen rose and stood before the glass, into which he asked of her
mother's reflected face, while she knotted a fallen coil of hair into
its place, "Where is he?"

"I don't know. He went on deck somewhere."

Ellen put on her hat and pinned it, and put on her jacket and buttoned
it. Then she started towards the door. Her mother made way for her,
faltering, "What are you going to do, Ellen?"

"I am going to do right."

"Don't-catch cold!" her mother called after her figure vanishing down
the corridor, but the warning couched in these terms had really no
reference to the weather.

The girl's impulse was one of those effects o