believed everything would come to pass
just as Ford promised it would and as he chose to order it; for the next
day, with a color not born of fever in her cheeks and courage in
her eyes, she joined Ford and the doctor at the luncheon-table. Her
attention was concentrated on the younger man. In him she saw the one
person who could bring her husband to her.

"She acts," growled the doctor later in the smoking-room, "as though
she was afraid you were going to back out of your promise and jump
overboard."

"Don't think," he protested violently, "it's you she's interested in.
All she sees in you is what you can do for her. Can you see that?"

"Any one as clever at seeing things as I am," returned the reporter,
"cannot help but see that."

Later, as Ford was walking on the upper deck, Mrs. Ashton came toward
him, beating her way against the wind. Without a trace of coquetry or
self-consciousness, and with a sigh of content, she laid her hand on his
arm.

"When I don't see you," she exclaimed as simply as a child, "I feel so
frightened. When I see you I know all will come right. Do you mind if I
walk with you?" she asked. "And do you mind if every now and then I ask
you to tell me again it will all come right?"

For the three days following Mrs. Ashton and Ford were constantly
together. Or, at least, Mrs. Ashton was constantly with Ford. She told
him that when she sat in her cabin the old fears returned to her, and in
these moments of panic she searched the ship for him.

The doctor protested that he was growing jealous.

"I'm not so greatly to be envied," suggested Ford. "'Harry' at
meals three times a day and on deck all the rest of the day becomes
monotonous. On a closer acquaintance with Harry he seems to be a decent
sort of a young man; at least he seems to have been at one time very
much in love with her."

"Well," sighed the doctor sentimentally, "she is certainly very much in
love with Harry."

Ford shook his head non-committingly. "I don't know her story," he said.
"Don't want to know it."

The ship was in the channel, on her way to Cherbourg, and running as
smoothly as a clock. From the shore friendly lights told them they were
nearing their journey's end; that the land was on every side. Seated
on a steamer-chair next to his in the semi-darkness of the deck, Mrs.
Ashton began to talk nervously and eagerly.

"Now that we are so near," she murmured, "I have got to tell you
something. If you did not kn