“It would be my inclination to make such a thing possible,” he said, answering her question.  “Tragedy is a nasty thing.”

She caught the hint of irony in his voice.  If anything, it added to her calmness.  He was to suffer no weeping entreaties, no feminine play of helplessness and beauty.  Her pretty mouth was a little firmer and the tilt of her dainty chin a bit higher.

“Of course, I can’t pay you,” she said.  “You are the sort of man who would resent an offer of payment for what I am about to ask you to do.  But I must have help.  If I don’t have it, and quickly”—­she shuddered slightly and tried to smile—­“something very unpleasant will happen, Mr. Holt,” she finished.

“If you will permit me to take you to Captain Rifle—­”

“No.  Captain Rifle would question me.  He would demand explanations.  You will understand when I tell you what I want.  And I will do that if I may have your word of honor to hold in confidence what I tell you, whether you help me or not.  Will you give me that pledge?”

“Yes, if such a pledge will relieve your mind, Miss Standish.”

He was almost brutally incurious.  As he reached for a cigar, he did not see the sudden movement she made, as if about to fly from his room, or the quicker throb that came in her throat.  When he turned, a faint flush was gathering in her cheeks.

“I want to leave the ship,” she said.

The simplicity of her desire held him silent.

“And I must leave it tonight, or tomorrow night—­before we reach Cordova.”

“Is that—­your problem?” he demanded, astonished.

“No.  I must leave it in such a way that the world will believe I am dead.  I can not reach Cordova alive.”

At last she struck home and he stared at her, wondering if she were insane.  Her quiet, beautiful eyes met his own with unflinching steadiness.  His brain all at once was crowded with questioning, but no word of it came to his lips.

“You can help me,” he heard her saying in the same quiet, calm voice, softened so that one could not have heard it beyond the cabin door.  “I haven’t a plan.  But I know you can arrange one—­if you will.  It must appear to be an accident.  I must disappear, fall overboard, anything, just so the world will believe I am dead.  It is necessary.  And I can not tell you why.  I can not.  Oh, I can not.”

A note of passion crept into her voice, but it was gone in an instant, leaving it cold and steady again.  A second time she tried to smile.  He could see courage, and a bit of defiance, shining in her eyes.

“I know what you are thinking, Mr. Holt.  You are asking yourself if I am mad, if I am a criminal, what my reason can be, and why I haven’t gone to Rossland, or Captain Rifle, or some one else.  And the only answer I can make is that I have come to you because you are the only man in the world—­in this hour—­that I have faith in.  Some day you will understand, if you help me.  If you do not care to help me—­”