ould have it with Major Murray, who, poor fellow, was
allowed no other nourishment than milk.

When we came back on deck it was to walk. We had been below for an hour
or more, but the girl and the man were still together. As Jim and I
passed and repassed those chairs, I could throw a quick glance in their
direction without being observed. Mrs. Brandreth's odd nervousness and
shy distress seemed to have gone. The two were talking so earnestly that
a school of porpoises might have jumped on deck without their knowing
that anything out of the way had happened.

Later in the afternoon, the owner of Mrs. Brandreth's chair appeared;
but when she would blushingly have given up her place, he refused to
take it. "I've only come to say," he explained, "that one seat on deck
is the same to me as any other. So why shouldn't I have _your_ chair,
wherever it is, and you keep mine? It's very nice for the Major here to
have found a friend, and it will do him a lot of good. I'm a doctor, and
if I were his physician, such society would be just what I should
prescribe for him."

Mrs. Brandreth had a chair, it seemed, though she said she'd come on
board so tired that she had stayed in her cabin till this morning.
Whether or not she were pleased at heart with the proposal, she accepted
it after a little discussion, and Murray's tragic eyes burned with a new
light.

I guessed that his wish had been to see this beautiful girl again before
he died. The fact that he was doomed to death no doubt spiritualized his
love. He no longer dreamed of being happy in ways which strong men of
his age call happiness; and so, in these days, he asked little of Fate.
Just a farewell sight of the loved one; a new memory of her to take away
with him. And if I were right in my judgment, this was the reason why,
even if Mrs. Brandreth had a husband in the background, these hours with
her would be hours of joy for Murray--without thought of any future.

That evening, as Jim and I were strolling out of our little salon to
dinner, the door of the cabin adjoining mine opened, and it was with a
shock of surprise that I saw Mrs. Brandreth. So _she_ was my mysterious
neighbour who cried and moaned in her sleep!... I was thrilled at the
discovery. But almost at once I told myself that I ought to have
Sherlocked the truth the moment this troubled, beautiful being had
appeared on deck.

Mrs. Brandreth was in black, of course, but she had changed into
semi-evening dre