had dropped upon my sofa--I felt faint. The man went on, liking to
talk as persons of his class do when they have something horrible to
tell. She usually rang for the stewardess early, but this morning of
course there had been no ring. The stewardess had gone in all the same
about eight o'clock and found the cabin empty. That was about an hour
previous. Her things were there in confusion--the things she usually
wore when she went above. The stewardess thought she had been a bit odd
the night before, but had waited a little and then gone back. Miss Mavis
hadn't turned up--and she didn't turn up. The stewardess began to look
for her--she hadn't been seen on deck or in the saloon. Besides, she
wasn't dressed--not to show herself; all her clothes were in her room.
There was another lady, an old lady, Mrs. Nettlepoint--I would know
her--that she was sometimes with, but the stewardess had been with _her_
and knew Miss Mavis hadn't come near her that morning. She had spoken to
_him_ and they had taken a quiet look--they had hunted everywhere. A
ship's a big place, but you did come to the end of it, and if a person
wasn't there why there it was. In short an hour had passed and the young
lady was not accounted for: from which I might judge if she ever would
be. The watch couldn't account for her, but no doubt the fishes in the
sea could--poor miserable pitiful lady! The stewardess and he had of
course thought it their duty to speak at once to the Doctor, and the
Doctor had spoken immediately to the Captain. The Captain didn't like
it--they never did, but he'd try to keep it quiet--they always did.

By the time I succeeded in pulling myself together and getting on, after
a fashion, the rest of my clothes I had learned that Mrs. Nettlepoint
wouldn't yet have been told, unless the stewardess had broken it to her
within the previous few minutes. Her son knew, the young gentleman on
the other side of the ship--he had the other steward; my man had seen him
come out of his cabin and rush above, just before he came in to me. He
_had_ gone above, my man was sure; he hadn't gone to the old lady's
cabin. I catch again the sense of my dreadfully seeing something at that
moment, catch the wild flash, under the steward's words, of Jasper
Nettlepoint leaping, with a mad compunction in his young agility, over
the side of the ship. I hasten to add, however, that no such incident
was destined to contribute its horror to poor Gra