the way to a cabin with two
berths, which he was to have to himself. Soon after, he was sitting at
one end of a horseshoe-shaped table in the dining-room. The service was
excellent, and the few passengers from the tender ate and drank; but it
was not very lively. The main dinner was over, and the little company
from the tender in the great, low-ceiled, empty saloon, were each too
tired and too engrossed in self to talk.

During the meal Frederick was not aware whether the mammoth body was
moving or standing still. The faint, scarcely perceptible quiver seemed
too slight to be a sign of the motion of so huge a mass. Frederick had
made his first sea voyage when a lad of eighteen as the only passenger on
a merchantman going from Hamburg to Naples. The thirteen years since had
considerably weakened the impressions of that trip. Moreover, the luxury
of this ocean liner into which he had strayed was something so new to
him, that all he could do at first was scrutinize everything in
astonishment.

When he had drunk his customary few glasses of wine, a sense of peace and
comfort stole over him. After their long irritation and tension his
nerves succumbed to a pleasant tiredness, which pressed upon him so
healthily and imperatively that he felt almost sure of a refreshing
night's sleep. He even made the firm resolution--in his condition
scarcely necessary--that for this night bygones should be bygones, the
future the future, and the present, without regard for past or future,
should belong unqualifiedly to rest and sleep.

When he went to bed, he actually did sleep for ten hours, heavily,
without stirring. At breakfast in the dining-room, he asked for the
passenger list, and with a wild leap of his heart read the names for
which he had been looking, Eugen Hahlstroem and Miss Ingigerd Hahlstroem.

IV

He folded up the list and glanced about. There were about fifteen to
twenty men and women in the saloon, all engaged in breakfasting or giving
their orders to the stewards. To Frederick it seemed they were there for
no other purpose than to spy upon his emotions.

The steamer had already been travelling for an hour on the ocean. The
dining-room took up the full width of the vessel, and from time to time
its port-holes were darkened by the waves dashing against them. Opposite
Frederick sat a gentleman in uniform, who introduced himself as Doctor
Wilhelm, the ship's physician. Straightway a very lively medical
discussio