sed and touched by these demonstrations, and it was not
long before she was chatting naturally and merrily with a jolly little
group to whom her father had laughingly introduced her as "the
convalescent."

"Do you see that young man coming toward us?" said Evelyn, nodding in the
direction of a tall, spare young fellow, who, with his shock of black
hair, long, aquiline nose, and sensitive, thin-lipped mouth, looked
decidedly temperamental, even to the most casual observer.

Lucile nodded. "What about him?" she asked.

"He's a Frenchman," adding, with a mysterious shake of her head, "Thereby
hangs a tale."

Much to Lucile's secret annoyance, the young man at her right claimed her
attention at that important moment, asking her, inanely, or so she
thought, if she could swim.

It was not until an hour later, when most of the passengers had drifted
off to different, and often more secluded, parts of the deck, and only
three or four remained with them, that Lucile had an opportunity to
question her friend.

"I hate mysteries, Evelyn," she whispered. "What did you mean by 'thereby
hangs a tale'? Explain yourself."

"I can't just now," answered Evelyn. "He might hear us. Anyway, I don't
know very much to tell. He would probably explain for himself if only
those old stick-plasters would go away and tend to their own affairs,"
and she glared belligerently at the three unconscious gentlemen and young
Monsieur Charloix, the Frenchman.

"No chance--they're glued!" said Jessie, gloomily, and Lucile looked from
one to the other of them despairingly.

"I wish I knew what you were getting at," she sighed.

"Mademoiselle has been very seek?" the voice was low, caressing, with the
slightest suggestion of a foreign accent.

Lucile turned her head and found herself looking into the bright,
restless eyes of the mysterious stranger.

For the first moment she was startled and a little confused, but the next
instant, recovering herself, she answered, gravely, "Yes, I have been
rather under the weather for a couple of days," and she added, with her
bright smile, "The thing that bothers me most is the thought of what I
have missed during that time."

"Mademoiselle is brave," he smiled back. "Most would think only of their
sufferings. However, there are still two good days in which to see
everything."

"Two days?" sighed Lucile. "It seems to me as if it would take two years
to see all I'd like to."

"Ah, but it is Mademoiselle's