no answer.

"Jove!" he muttered. "She's gone off--and no wonder. It's awful!"

He began to be flurried, for his own head was not too clear. "She may be
flung to the floor while I'm groping around for that suitcase of mine,
if she's fainted, and can't save herself when the next wave comes," he
thought. "That won't do. I'll have to light up, and wall her in with the
bedding from the top bunk, so she can't easily be pitched out."

Hesitating a little, not quite sure about the propriety of the necessary
revelation, he nevertheless switched on the electricity. After the dusk
which had turned everything shadow-gray, the little stateroom appeared
to be brilliantly illuminated. In his berth lay the girl he had seen on
deck and at dinner.

Max was not completely taken by surprise, as he would have been had he
seen the vision before hearing her voice. As she clung round his neck,
she had spoken only brokenly and in a whisper, but from the first words
he had felt instinctively sure of his companion's identity.

If she had been delicately pale before, now she was deathly white, so
white that Max, who had never before seen a woman faint, felt a stab of
fear. What if she had a weak heart? What if she were dead?

She wore a dressing-gown of a white woollen material, inexpensive
perhaps, but classic in its soft foldings around the slender body; and
the thought flitted through Max's head that she was like a slim Greek
statue, come alive; or perhaps Galatea, disappointed with the world,
turning back to marble.

All the while he, with unsteady hands, unlocked and opened his bag,
fumbling among its contents for the flask, she lay still, without a
quiver of the eyelids. She did not even seem to breathe. But perhaps
girls were like that when they fainted! Max didn't know. He wanted to
listen for the beating of her heart, but dared not. He would try the
brandy, and if that did not bring her to herself, he would ring and ask
for the ship's doctor. But--could he do that? How could he explain to
any one their being together in this cabin?

Hastily he poured a little brandy from the flask into the tiny cup which
screwed on like a cover. The pitching and tossing made it hard not to
spill the fluid over the upturned face--that would have been
sacrilege!--but with an adroitness born of desperation he contrived to
pour a few drops between the parted lips. Apparently they produced no
effect; but another cautious experiment was rewarded by a g