Page:The Great Secret.djvu/46

30 confidences and asking none, conversing on indifferent or commonplace topics, or gazing silently on the passing effects of sky and ocean, yet he felt more tranquil and she looked happier. They had become friends without words, and the others left them to themselves.

He had spoken to her about the subject which filled all minds, and she received his communication quietly. It might be true, or it might not. They had no means of proving, for the second-cabin passengers seldom saw the saloon class, and then, only at a distance. They both watched the sallow or swarthy-visaged suspected ones as they smoked their cigarettes on their appointed promenade.

"What do you think they want, Mr Mortlake?" she inquired calmly.

"It is difficult to say," he replied. "To terrorise Europe has been their principal aim, and yet to wipe a ship like this out of existence could hardly effect their purpose, for the world would never learn our fate; therefore the sacrifice of their own lives would be labour lost."

"Perhaps they require the ship."

"That is more likely to be their intention, if they have any at all; and in that case I suppose they could set us ashore somewhere, if we yielded quietly."

"Is the captain likely to yield?"

"Decidedly not, if I am any judge of faces; he is a true British bull dog."

"And you?"

"I would side with the captain, of course," Philip replied, meeting her quick upward glance, and wondering why she had looked at him.

"For my own part," she continued, "I do not feel much concern about this so-called plot, whether we are