n, and employed
many artifices to secure them, usually with success. She had engaged
Captain Evan on the deck during every afternoon for a whole week, fanning
away a purely hypothetical headache. Altogether Mrs. Macdougal was a
delightful fool; almost everybody liked her.

'Really, for your own sake, my dear! It will not do for two of us to be
invalids.' Mrs. Macdougal pressed a firm white hand upon her ample bosom,
and coughed a melancholy little cough, hinting at a deep-seated
complaint, the seriousness of which she could not long hope to disguise
from her friends.

Lucy retired dutifully, and her mistress composed herself in an effective
attitude for a long chat with the young man.

'Darling girl!' she said, gazing affectionately after the retreating
figure. It suddenly occurred to her that she was very fond of Lucy
Woodrow, although up to the time of the accident she had not given her a
second thought.

The young man did not feel called upon to make a demonstration; he merely
inclined his head and watched Lucy along the deck as a manifestation of
some little interest in the subject.

'If anything had happened to her that awful time!' Mrs. Macdougal's eyes
waxed to their greatest dimensions to express terror, distress, all the
excitement of the accident, and were veiled under their white lids and
heavy lashes to convey some idea of the grief that would have lacerated
that gentle breast had Lucy Woodrow perished in the cruel sea. 'Ah, Mr.
Done, I, too, owe you a debt of gratitude!' she continued. 'The poor girl
is in my care. I should never have forgiven myself.'

'I can't accept your gratitude, ma'am,' said Jim brusquely.

'So gallant, so noble!' murmured the lady. She was not succeeding, and
she felt it. The boy was too ridiculous. She assumed a new pose, gazing
dreamily over the side into the scudding sea.

'If I were to fall in, Mr. Done,' she said, after a telling pause, 'you
would save me too?' She smiled coquettishly.

'I should not, Mrs. Macdougal; the responsibility is too great.'

She did not fully understand him, and was quite shocked, but answered
brightly:

'Oh yes, it is, is it not?'

Jim now resented the woman's intrusion upon him with a cublike
sullenness. He even longed to be avenged upon her for his uneasiness, and
would have liked to have said quite coolly, 'In the devil's name, madam,
leave me to myself!' It piqued him that, after all, he had not the moral
courage to do this, so he t