and with a feeling of
disappointment, which seemed inconsistent with so slight a cause, he
crossed the deck impatiently and entered his room. He was about to
close the door when the prolonged rustle of a trailing skirt in the
passage attracted his attention. The sound was so unlike that made by
any garment worn by Rosey that he remained motionless, with his hand on
the door. The sound approached nearer, and the next moment a white
veiled figure with a trailing skirt slowly swept past the room.
Renshaw's pulses halted for an instant in half superstitious awe. As
the apparition glided on and vanished in the cabin door he could only
see that it was the form of a beautiful and graceful woman--but nothing
more. Bewildered and curious, he forgot himself so far as to follow
it, and impulsively entered the cabin. The figure turned, uttered a
little cry, threw the veil aside, and showed the half troubled, half
blushing face of Rosey.

"I--beg--your pardon," stammered Renshaw; "I didn't know it was you."

"I was trying on some things," said Rosey, recovering her composure and
pointing to an open trunk that seemed to contain a theatrical
wardrobe--"some things father gave me long ago. I wanted to see if
there was anything I could use. I thought I was all alone in the ship,
but fancying I heard a noise forward I came out to see what it was. I
suppose it must have been you."

She raised her clear eyes to his, with a slight touch of womanly
reserve that was so incompatible with any vulgar vanity or girlish
coquetry that he became the more embarrassed. Her dress, too, of a
slightly antique shape, rich but simple, seemed to reveal and accent a
certain repose of gentlewomanliness, that he was now wishing to believe
he had always noticed. Conscious of a superiority in her that now
seemed to change their relations completely, he alone remained silent,
awkward, and embarrassed before the girl who had taken care of his
room, and who cooked in the galley! What he had thoughtlessly
considered a merely vulgar business intrigue against her stupid father,
now to his extravagant fancy assumed the proportions of a sacrilege to
herself.

"You've had your revenge, Miss Nott, for the fright I once gave you,"
he said a little uneasily, "for you quite startled me just now as you
passed. I began to think the Pontiac was haunted. I thought you were
a ghost. I don't know why such a ghost should FRIGHTEN anybody," he
went on with a desp