e in various stages of
undress, and the red-haired second-cabin passenger was standing at the
door.

"I promised Miss Vanderpoel----" he was saying, when Betty came forward.
He turned to her promptly.

"I come to tell you that it seems absolutely to be relied on that there
is no immediate danger. The tramp is more injured than we are."

"Oh, are you sure? Are you sure?" panted Blanche, catching at his
sleeve.

"Yes," he answered. "Can I do anything for you?" he said to Bettina, who
was on the point of speaking.

"Will you be good enough to help me to assist Mrs. Worthington into her
berth, and then try to find the doctor."

He went into the next room without speaking. To Mrs. Worthington he
spoke briefly a few words of reassurance. He was a powerful man, and
laid her on her berth without dragging her about uncomfortably, or
making her feel that her weight was greater than even in her most
desponding moments she had suspected. Even her helplessly hysteric mood
was illuminated by a ray of grateful appreciation.

"Oh, thank you--thank you," she murmured. "And you are quite sure there
is no actual danger, Mr.----?"

"Salter," he terminated for her. "You may feel safe. The damage is
really only slight, after all."

"It is so good of you to come and tell us," said the poor lady, still
tremulous. "The shock was awful. Our introduction has been an alarming
one. I--I don't think we have met during the voyage."

"No," replied Salter. "I am in the second cabin."

"Oh! thank you. It's so good of you," she faltered amiably, for want of
inspiration. As he went out of the stateroom, Salter spoke to Bettina.

"I will send the doctor, if I can find him," he said. "I think, perhaps,
you had better take some brandy yourself. I shall."

"It's queer how little one seems to realise even that there are
second-cabin passengers," commented Mrs. Worthington feebly. "That was a
nice man, and perfectly respectable. He even had a kind of--of manner."

CHAPTER IX

LADY JANE GREY

It seemed upon the whole even absurd that after a shock so awful and a
panic wild enough to cause people to expose their very souls--for
there were, of course, endless anecdotes to be related afterwards,
illustrative of grotesque terror, cowardice, and utter abandonment
of all shadows of convention--that all should end in an anticlimax of
trifling danger, upon which, in a day or two, jokes might be made. Even
the tramp steamer had not been serious