He did not answer until he had arranged her rug and made her comfortable.  It was the last few hours of their voyage.  Facing them they could see in the distance the lights of Wales.  Next morning would see them in dock.

“I will not keep you very long,” he said, drawing his chair quite close to hers, so that they could not be overheard, “but I insist upon knowing why for the last twenty-four hours you have done nothing but avoid me?  I have not offended you in any way, have I?”

“No!” she answered, looking steadily away at the lights, “you know that you have not.”

“On the contrary,” he continued, “I have done what little I could to make the voyage more endurable to you.  Of course I know the pleasure of your society more than compensated me for any little services I have been able to render, but still I have done nothing to deserve this altered treatment from you, and I am determined to know what it means.”

“You are exaggerating trifles,” she said coldly.  “I have felt nervous and depressed all day, and I did not care to talk to any one.  I have not avoided you more than anybody else.”

“That,” he answered, “is not true.”

She turned slowly round till he could see her face, still and pale and cold, almost, it seemed to him, luminously white in the heavy darkness of the moonless hour.

“You can contradict me if you choose,” she said, “but you can scarcely expect me to sit here and listen to you.”

He leaned a little closer, and she suddenly felt her hand clasped in his.

“Virginia,” he said,—­“yes, I mean it—­Virginia, don’t be unkind to me, our last night.  You know very well that it hurts me to have you speak and look at me so.  Besides, we are going to be friends; you promised me that, you know.”

“If I did,” she answered, “it was very foolish.  Friends means the giving and taking of confidences, and I have none to give.  I am going to do strange things, and in an odd way, and I have no explanations to offer.  If I had friends, they would think that I had taken leave of my senses, and they would want me to explain.  That is just what I cannot do.  That is why I am sure it would be better if you would let me alone.”

“I shall not do that,” he answered firmly.  “I am not a morbidly curious person, nor do I want to pry into your affairs, but I cannot help feeling that you are in some sort of trouble, and that it would be good for you, in a strange country, to have some one on whose help you could rely in case of need.”

“You mean well, I know,” she answered, “but you are asking impossibilities.  If you should happen to come across me over here, you will understand what I mean.  I am going to do things which very likely you would be ashamed to think that any friend of yours would do.”

He turned upon her a little angrily.

“Child,” he said, “if I weren’t so fond of you I think you would make me lose my temper.  How old are you?”