“By an arithmetical process.  That is his age?”

“Yes; and yours?”

“Not exactly.  I was thirty-seven last August.”

“And will be thirty-eight next?”

“That is the logical deduction.”

“I shall give you a birthday-gift when you are just twice my age.”

“By what courier will you make it reach me?”

“Oh, I forgot.  But—­Mr. Raleigh?” “What is it?” he replied, turning to look at her,—­for his eyes had been wandering over the deck.

“I thought you would ask me to write to you.”

“No, that would not be worth while.”

His face was too grave for her to feel indignation.

“Why?” she demanded.

“It would give me great pleasure, without doubt.  But in a week you will have too many other cares and duties to care for such a burden.”

“That shows that you do not know me at all. Vous en avez use mal avec moi!”

Though Mr. Raleigh still looked at her, he did not reply.  She rose and walked away a few steps, coming back.

“You are always in the right, and I consequently in the wrong,” she said.  “How often to-night have I asked pardon?  I will not put up with it!”

“We shall part in a few hours,” he replied; “when you lose your temper, I lose my time.”

“In a few hours?  Then is the danger which you mentioned past?”

“I scarcely think so.”

“Now I am not going to be diverted again.  What is this dreadful danger?”

“Let me tell you, in the first place, that we shall probably make the port before our situation becomes apparently worse,—­that we do not take to the boats, because we are twice too many to fill them, owing to the Belle Voyageuse, and because it might excite mutiny, and for several other becauses,—­that every one is on deck, Capua consoling Ursule, the captain having told to each, personally, the possibility of escape”——­

“Allez au hut!”

“That the lights are closed, the hatches battened down, and by dint of excluding the air we can keep the flames in a smouldering state and sail into harbor a shell of safety over this core of burning coal.”

“Reducing the equation, the ship is on fire?”

“Yes.”

She did not speak for a moment or two, and he saw that she was quite faint.  Soon recovering herself,—­

“And what do you think of the mirage now?” she asked.  “Where is Ursule?  I must go to her,” she added suddenly, after a brief silence, starting to her feet.

“Shall I accompany you?”

“Oh, no.”

“She lies on a mattress there, behind that group,”—­nodding in the implied direction; “and it would be well, if you could lie beside her and get an hour’s rest.”

“Me?  I couldn’t sleep.  I shall come back to you,—­may I?” And she was gone.

Mr. Raleigh still sat in the position in which she had left him, when, a half-hour afterward, she returned.