o pace up and down the deck. The majority of the passengers were
sitting muffled up in deck chairs, but, unlike the Boulogne boat, there
was plenty of room to walk; and Vane was of the particular brand who
always think more easily when they move.

And he wanted to think of Joan. He had not thought of much else since he
had left her--but the subject never tired. He could feel her now as she
had lain in his arms; he could still smell the soft fragrance of her
hair. The wind was singing through the rigging, and suddenly the wonder
of her came over him in a great wave and he stared over the grey sea with
shining eyes.

After a while he tapped out his pipe, and prepared to fill it again. It
was as he stood, with his tobacco pouch open in his hand, that something
in the sea attracted his attention. He grew rigid, and stared at it--and
at the same moment a frantic ringing of the engine-room bell showed that
the officer on the bridge had seen it too. Simultaneously everyone
seemed to become aware that something was wrong--and for a brief second
almost a panic occurred. The ship was swinging to port, but Vane
realised that it was hopeless: the torpedo must get them. And the
sea-gulls circling round the boat shrieked discordantly at him. . . . He
took a grip of the rail, and braced himself to meet the shock.
Involuntarily he closed his eyes--the devil . . . it was worse than a
crump--you could hear that coming--and this. . . .

"Quick--get it over." He did not know he had spoken . . . and then it
came. . . . There was a great rending explosion--curiously muffled, Vane
thought, compared with a shell. But it seemed so infinitely more
powerful and destructive; like the upheaval of some great monster, slow
and almost dignified compared with the snapping fury of a smaller beast.
It seemed as if the very bowels of the earth had shaken themselves and
irrupted.

The ship staggered and shook like a stricken thing, and Vane opened his
eyes. Already she was beginning to list a little, and he saw the gaping
hole in her side, around which floated an indescribable litter of small
objects and bits of wood. The torpedo had hit her forward, but with the
headway she still had the vessel drifted on, and the litter of debris
came directly underneath Vane. With a sudden narrowing of his eyes, he
saw what was left of a girl turning slowly over and over in the still
seething water.

Then he turned round and looked at the scene on