The sound outside ceased.  It was about five minutes since the bell had rung, and Karen yawned and sat down on the bed.  “I’ll let her ring again,” she said.  “If she gets in the habit of this sort of thing, I’m going to leave.”  The stewardess asked her to put out the light and let her sleep, and Karen did so.  The two women were in darkness, and the stewardess dozed, for a minute only.  She was awakened by Karen touching her on the shoulder and whispering close to her ear.

“That beast is out there,” she said.  “I peered out, and I think he is sitting on the companion steps.  You listen, and if he tries to stop me I’ll call you.”

The stewardess was wide awake by that time.  She thought perhaps the bell, instead of coming from Mrs. Turner’s room, had come from the room adjoining Turner’s, where Vail slept, and which had been originally designed for Mrs. Turner.  She suggested turning on the light again and looking at the bell register; but Karen objected.

The stewardess sat up in her bed, which was the one under the small window opening on the deck aft.  She could not see through the door directly, but a faint light came through the doorway as Karen opened the door.

The girl stood there, looking out.  Then suddenly she threw up her hands and screamed, and the next moment there was a blow struck.  She staggered back a step or two, and fell into the room.  The stewardess saw a white figure in the doorway as the girl fell.  Almost instantly something whizzed by her, striking the end of a pillow and bruising her arm.  She must have fainted.  When she recovered, faint daylight was coming into the room, and the body of the Danish girl was lying as it had fallen.

She tried to get up, and fainted again.

That was her story, and it did not tell us much that we needed to know.  She showed me her right arm, which was badly bruised and discolored at the shoulder.

“What do you mean by a white figure?”

“It looked white:  it seemed to shine.”

“When I went to call you, Mrs. Sloane, the door to your room was closed.”

“I saw it closed!” she said positively.  “I had forgotten that, but now I remember.  The axe fell beside me, and I tried to scream, but I could not.  I saw the door closed, very slowly and without a sound.  Then I fainted.”

The thing was quite possible.  Owing to the small size of the cabin, and to the fact that it must accommodate two bunks, the door opened out into the chart-room.  Probably the woman had fainted before I broke the lock of my door and fell into the main cabin.  But a white figure!

“Karen exclaimed,” Miss Lee said slowly, “that some one was sitting on the companion steps?”

“Yes, miss.”

“And she thought that it was Mr. Turner?”

“Yes.”  The stewardess looked quickly at Mrs. Turner, and averted her eyes.  “It may have been all talk, miss, about his—­about his bothering her.  She was a great one to fancy that men were following her about.”