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Deborah have been bosom bows since you was in leading strings and always shared your secrets! Did she make you promise not to give her away, child? If you will but tell me, perhaps—” Her eyes becoming very bright, Estelle lowered her voice. “ Was it an affaire de coeur, my love? Was he tall and dark and ador ____ ” She broke off with a gasp. “What am I saying, and her unwed! You would never lend your support to so improper a scheme!”
    Rosamond shook her elegantly coiffed but unpowdered head. “I do not believe there was an improper scheme. But if there had been, Deborah would not be so wanting in propriety as to involve me. She knows I still mourn Hal, even as she does.”
    At once Mrs. Estelle’s face was sad. She had been deeply fond of Harold Singleton, and his untimely death had horrified her. She struggled from the berth and staggered across the swaying cabin to sit beside her niece and take her hand. “How unkind in me to scold you, sweet child. You have borne your loss so bravely, and you were so deep in love.”
    Rosamond said slowly, “No. I will be honest, dear, that is not quite true. Harold was a darling. I was quite content to become his wife, and if I was not in love with him, I did love him. He was so kind and honourable, and so absolutely devoted to me. He was the best kind of man; the kind England needs, and when I think of the evil malcontents who stamped out that bright young life! That dear Hal had to die—so far from all who loved him—” She broke off, a lump coming into her throat, and blinked mistily at Trifle’s nose, just visible under the opposite berth.
    This little speech had shocked the romantically inclined Mrs. Porchester, who had fancied her beautiful niece to be bravely concealing a broken heart. Somewhat disappointed, she said, “Such a tragedy. Hal was a gentleman in the fullest sense of the word. ’Twas terribly hard for poor Charles as well, for I dare swear one might have thought he and Hal were brothers, rather than he and William. Shall I ever forget Charles’s rage when he went up to Scotland and found Hal had been thrown into a common grave, so he could not even say a prayer over where he lies … Dear God, what a frightful thing is war! What a fright ____ ”
    With the suddenness peculiar to the English Channel, what the captain had prophesied would be no more than a minor disturbance had become a violent storm. Black clouds sulked across the sky, the gusty wind roared into a fearsome gale, and the heavens opened to release lashing sheets of rain. The cabin tilted crazily, then rushed downwards as the packet was drawn into a trough between mountainous waves.
    Mrs. Estelle clutched the sides of the bunk and uttered a piercing shriek. The puppy presented to her a month ago in Copenhagen, whom she had rather inappropriately named Trifle, woke up, clawed his way from under the bunk, and began to bark excitedly.
    Rosamond pushed the dog away when he decided to occupy her lap, and demanded he “be quiet!” Undaunted, Trifle rushed about, creating havoc in the small cabin as he pranced clumsily through an open bandbox and scattered the neatly packed contents.
    Fortunately, neither lady was subject to mal de mer, but the sudden and violent storm was frightening, and several times it was all Rosamond could do to convince either herself or her aunt that they were not en route to the bottom of the sea.
    Trifle viewed the whole thing as a game and, having been sternly forbidden a promising slipper, he declared war on a towel hanging at the side of the wash-stand and worried at it, growling so ferociously that all commands to desist apparently went unheard. He was only four months old, but during the last few weeks it had become very apparent that his well-born Danish mama had been acquainted with another admirer before she was presented to her equally well-born selected mate. The appealing and