p like an infant and
scolded her for crying.

It was a hot morning in the Indian Ocean. She had not slept during the
night, and she was feeling weary and oppressed. But, with a woman's
instinctive reserve, she forced a hasty smile. She would not have
stopped to speak had he not risen and barred her progress.

"Sit here!" he said.

She looked up at him with refusal on her lips; but he forestalled her
by laying an immense hand on her shoulder and pressing her down into the
chair he had just vacated. This accomplished, he turned and hung over
the rail in silence. It seemed to be the man's habit at all times to do
rather than to speak.

Sybil sat passive, feeling rather helpless, dumbly watching the great
lounging figure, and wondered how she should escape without hurting his
feelings.

Suddenly, without turning his head, he spoke to her.

"I suppose if I ask what's the matter you'll tell me to go to the
devil."

The remark, though characteristic, was totally unexpected. Sybil stared
at him for a moment. Then, as once before, his rude address set her
sense of humour a-quivering. Depressed, miserable though she was, she
began to laugh.

He turned, and looked at her sideways.

"No doubt I am very funny," he observed dryly.

She checked herself with an effort.

"Oh, I know I'm horrid to laugh. But it's not that I am ungrateful.
There is nothing really the matter. I--I'm feeling rather like a stray
cat this morning, that's all."

The smile still lingered about her lips as she said it. Somehow, telling
this taciturn individual of her trouble deprived it of much of its
bitterness.

Mercer displayed no sympathy. He did not even continue to look at her.
But she did not feel that his impassivity arose from lack of interest.

Suddenly:

"Is it true that you are going to be married as soon as you land?" he
asked.

Sybil was sitting forward with her chin in her hands.

"Quite true," she said; adding, half to herself, "so far as I know."

"What do you mean by that?" He turned squarely and looked down at her.

She hesitated a little, but eventually she told him.

"I thought there would have been a letter for me from Robin at Aden, but
there wasn't. It has worried me rather."

"Robin?" he said interrogatively.

"Robin Wentworth, the man I am going to marry," she explained. "He has a
farm at Bowker Creek, near Rollandstown. But he will meet me at the
docks. He has promised to do that. Still, I thought I should