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48 time. Her gaze dropped, fixed itself abstractedly on the door. … "This must be fastened," she said, in a tone of complete disinterest.

"I will speak to the chief steward immediately."

"Don't trouble." She roused. "It doesn't matter, really, for to-night. I shall leave what valuables I have in the purser's care and stop on deck till daybreak."

He gave a gesture of bewilderment. "You abandon your seclusion—leave your secret unguarded?"

"Why not?" She shrugged slightly with a little moue of discontent. "If, as you assume, I had a secret, it was that for certain reasons I did not wish my presence on board to become known. But it seems it has become known: my secret is no more. So I need no longer risk being cut off from the boats in the event of any accident."

Momentarily her gravity was dissipated by a smile at once delightful and provocative.

"Once more, monsieur—good-night!"

After some moments Lanyard, with a start, found himself staring blankly at a blankly incommunicative communicating door.