ets and his cap was drawn well down over his eyes.
He was passing without a word, ignoring them more completely than if
they had been total strangers. He would, at least, have glanced at
strangers.

"Hello, Mr. Ridge, going below?" called Veath.

"I'm going wherever the ship goes," came the sullen reply.

"Hope _she's_ not going below," laughed the disturber.

"It's my only hope," was the bitter retort from the companionway.

"He's certainly in love, Miss Ridge. Men don't have the blues like that
unless there's a woman in the case. I think you'd better talk to your
brother. Tell him she'll be true, and if she isn't, convince him that
there are just as good fish in the sea. Poor fellow, I suppose he thinks
she's the only woman on earth," commented Mr. Veath, with mock
solemnity.

"She may be as much at sea as he," she said,--and very truthfully.

"Well, if love dies, there is a consolation in knowing that the sea
casts up its dead," was his sage, though ill-timed remark.

Grace slept but little that night, and went early to breakfast in the
hope that she might see Hugh alone. But he came in late, haggard and
pale, living evidence of a sleepless night. Veath was with him and her
heart sank. During the meal the good-natured Indianian did most of the
talking, being driven at last, by the strange reticence of his
companions, to the narration of a series of personal experiences.
Struggle as he would, he could not bring a mirthful laugh from the girl
beside him, nor from the sour visaged man beyond. They laughed, of
course, but it was the laugh of politeness.

"I wonder if she is in love, too," shot through his mind, and a thrill
of regret grew out of the possibility. Once his eye caught her in the
act of pressing Hugh's hand as it was being withdrawn from sight. With a
knowing smile he bent close to her and whispered: "That's right, cheer
him up!" Grace admitted afterward that nothing had ever made her quite
so furious as that friendly expression.

But jealousy is jealousy. It will not down. The next three days were
miserable ones for Hugh. The green-eyed monster again cast the cloak of
moroseness over him--swathed him in the inevitable wet blanket, as it
were. During the first two days Veath had performed a hundred little
acts of gallantry which fall to the lot of a lover but hardly to that of
a brother--a score of things that would not have been observed by the
latter, but which were inwardly cursed by the lover.