ontempt, for those who shirked theirs.

The passion of love, that greatest of the Protean riddles set by nature
to civilized man and woman, played no part, or so Nan Archdale believed,
in John Coxeter's life. At the time she had received the letter in which
he had first asked her to marry him, there had come to her, seen through
the softening mists of time, a sharp, poignant remembrance of Jim
Archdale's offer, "If you won't have me, Nan, I'll do something
desperate! You'll be sorry then!" So poor Jim Archdale had conquered
her; and looking back, when she recalled their brief married life, she
forgot the selfishness and remembered only the love, the love which had
made Jim so dependent on her presence and her sympathy.

But if John Coxeter were incapable of love, she now knew him to be a
good friend, and it was the friend--so she believed, and was grateful to
him for it,--who had asked her to accept what he had quixotically
supposed would be the shelter of his name when she had done that thing
of which he had disapproved.

To-night Nan could not help wondering if he would ever again ask her to
marry him. She thought not--she hoped not. She told herself quite
seriously that he was one of those men who are far happier unwedded. His
standard, not so much of feminine virtue as of feminine behaviour, was
too high. Take what had happened just now; she had listened indulgently,
tenderly, to the quarrel of the newly married couple, but she had seen
the effect it had produced on John Coxeter. To him it had been a
tragedy, and an ugly, ignoble tragedy to boot.

* * * * *

The deck was now clear of passengers. Out in the open sea the fog had
become so thick as to be impenetrable, and the boat seemed to be groping
its way, heralded by the mournful screaming of the siren. Mrs. Archdale
felt drowsy; she leant back and closed her eyes. Coxeter was close by,
puffing steadily at his pipe. She felt a pleasant sensation of security.

She was roused, rather startled, by a man bending over her, while a
voice said gruffly, "I think, ma'am, that you'd better get into shelter.
The deck saloon is close by. Allow me to lead you to it."

Nan rose obediently. With the petty officer on one side and Coxeter on
the other, she made a slow progress across the deck, and so to the
large, brilliantly lighted saloon. There the fog had been successfully
shut out, and some fifteen to twenty people sat on the velvet benche