’Really, for your own sake, my dear!  It will not do for two of us to be invalids.’  Mrs. Macdougal pressed a firm white hand upon her ample bosom, and coughed a melancholy little cough, hinting at a deep-seated complaint, the seriousness of which she could not long hope to disguise from her friends.

Lucy retired dutifully, and her mistress composed herself in an effective attitude for a long chat with the young man.

‘Darling girl!’ she said, gazing affectionately after the retreating figure.  It suddenly occurred to her that she was very fond of Lucy Woodrow, although up to the time of the accident she had not given her a second thought.

The young man did not feel called upon to make a demonstration; he merely inclined his head and watched Lucy along the deck as a manifestation of some little interest in the subject.

‘If anything had happened to her that awful time!’ Mrs. Macdougal’s eyes waxed to their greatest dimensions to express terror, distress, all the excitement of the accident, and were veiled under their white lids and heavy lashes to convey some idea of the grief that would have lacerated that gentle breast had Lucy Woodrow perished in the cruel sea.  ’Ah, Mr. Done, I, too, owe you a debt of gratitude!’ she continued.  ’The poor girl is in my care.  I should never have forgiven myself.’

‘I can’t accept your gratitude, ma’am,’ said Jim brusquely.

‘So gallant, so noble!’ murmured the lady.  She was not succeeding, and she felt it.  The boy was too ridiculous.  She assumed a new pose, gazing dreamily over the side into the scudding sea.

‘If I were to fall in, Mr. Done,’ she said, after a telling pause, ’you would save me too?’ She smiled coquettishly.

‘I should not, Mrs. Macdougal; the responsibility is too great.’

She did not fully understand him, and was quite shocked, but answered brightly: 

‘Oh yes, it is, is it not?’

Jim now resented the woman’s intrusion upon him with a cublike sullenness.  He even longed to be avenged upon her for his uneasiness, and would have liked to have said quite coolly, ’In the devil’s name, madam, leave me to myself!’ It piqued him that, after all, he had not the moral courage to do this, so he turned a forbidding shoulder, pretending interest in the scud of sea.

‘Really, Mr. Done, you are foolish to hide yourself here,’ continued Mrs. Macdougal.  ’It is so much pleasanter in our part, and you have the freedom of the ship, you know.  Dear, kind Captain Evan could not deny me.  Do come!  Our little entertainments will delight you, and everybody will be so pleased.’

‘I’m very well where I am, thanks.’  The lad’s tone was not at all gracious.

’But you are so much above these men, and there are several nice cabin passengers—­quite superior people, who are anxious to know you.’

’You’re mistaken, ma’am.  I’m a farm labourer going out there to earn my living.  I’m at home here with common men, and I hate superior people!’