the
shadow:

"You'd only laugh if I told you."

"No," declared Mr. Spokesly. "Honest I won't. Laugh at meself--yes. But
you--that's different."

"But you don't believe in love at first sight, I can see very well."

"I only said I hadn't anything like that happen to me," he replied
slowly, pondering. "But I s'pose it has to be something like that in a
case like yours."

"I don't understand you."

"Well, you being English, you see, and Mr. Dainopoulos a foreigner."

"As an excuse, I suppose? Father made the same remark, but I never
thanked him."

Mr. Spokesly looked at her soberly. Her eyes were bright and resolute,
and the lamplight threw into salience the curve of her jaw and chin. A
fugitive thought flitted about his mind for a moment and vanished
again--whether her father was inconsolable at his daughter's departure.

"You got married at home then?"

"Yes, after Mr. Dainopoulos saved my life."

"Did he?"

"Of course. That's how we met. Didn't you ever hear of the _Queen Mab_
accident? It was in the papers."

"Can't say as I did. I was out East so long, you see. Wait a bit,
though----" Mr. Spokesly pondered. "I fancy I remember reading something
about it in the home papers; an excursion steamer in collision with a
cargo boat, wasn't it?" The girl nodded.

"Down the river. I was in it. My sister--she was drowned. We were going
to Southend."

"I see. And Mr. Dainopoulos, he was with you and----"

"No. I'd never seen him then. You see, we were all standing by the
paddle-box when the other ship cut into us, my sister Gladys and two
boys we'd been keeping company with. It was something awful, everybody
screaming and the boat going up in the air. I mean the other end was
going down. At last we couldn't stand, so we sat on the paddle-box. Then
all of a sudden the boat slid over to one side and we went in."

Mr. Spokesly made a sound expressive of intense sympathy and interest.

"And next thing I knew was somebody was holding me up and he said,
'Don't move! Don't move!' But I couldn't! Something must have hit me
when I fell in. I didn't know where then--the water was awfully cold.
And then a boat came, and they lifted me in. And then he swam off again
to find the others. I don't faint as a rule, but I did then. There were
so many, and the screams--oh, it was shocking!

"But the worst was when we got on land again. It was near Woolwich and
they turned a chapel or something into a hospital for us. And al