e asked.

He didn't know. Perhaps. He confessed he could not have done it. Not
he. His flesh and blood could not have stood it. He would have felt he
must see what was coming. Then he remembered that the flare might have
scorched her face, and expressed his concern.

"A bit. Nothing to hurt. Smell the singed hair?"

There was a sort of gaiety in her tone. She might have been frightened
but she certainly was not overcome and suffered from no reaction. This
confirmed and augmented if possible Mr. Powell's good opinion of her as a
"jolly girl," though it seemed to him positively monstrous to refer in
such terms to one's captain's wife. "But she doesn't look it," he
thought in extenuation and was going to say something more to her about
the lighting of that flare when another voice was heard in the companion,
saying some indistinct words. Its tone was contemptuous; it came from
below, from the bottom of the stairs. It was a voice in the cabin. And
the only other voice which could be heard in the main cabin at this time
of the evening was the voice of Mrs. Anthony's father. The indistinct
white oval sank from Mr. Powell's sight so swiftly as to take him by
surprise. For a moment he hung at the opening of the companion and now
that her slight form was no longer obstructing the narrow and winding
staircase the voices came up louder but the words were still indistinct.
The old gentleman was excited about something and Mrs. Anthony was
"managing him" as Powell expressed it. They moved away from the bottom
of the stairs and Powell went away from the companion. Yet he fancied he
had heard the words "Lost to me" before he withdrew his head. They had
been uttered by Mr. Smith.

Captain Anthony had not moved away from the taffrail. He remained in the
very position he took up to watch the other ship go by rolling and
swinging all shadowy in the uproar of the following seas. He stirred
not; and Powell keeping near by did not dare speak to him, so enigmatical
in its contemplation of the night did his figure appear to his young
eyes: indistinct--and in its immobility staring into gloom, the prey of
some incomprehensible grief, longing or regret.

Why is it that the stillness of a human being is often so impressive, so
suggestive of evil--as if our proper fate were a ceaseless agitation? The
stillness of Captain Anthony became almost intolerable to his second
officer. Mr. Powell loitering about the skylight want