coasts for some little distance the Ariadne, under orders, had turned her nose boldly northward for the estuary of the Thames.  The Ariadne was now in the midst of that very complicated puzzle of deeps and shallows.  The passengers, in fact, knew that they were in the region of the North Edinburgh, but what or where the North Edinburgh was they had only the vaguest idea.  The blot on the voyage had been the indisposition of Mr. Gilman, who had taken to his berth early, and who saw nobody but his doctor, through whom he benignantly administered the world of the yacht.  Doctor Cromarty had a face which imparted nothing and yet implied everything.  He said less and meant more than even the average pure-blooded Scotsman.  It was imparted that Mr. Gilman had a chronic complaint.  The implications were vast and baffling.

“We shall dance after all,” said Miss Thompkins, bending with a mysterious gesture over Audrey, who reclined in a deck-chair near the companion leading to the deserted engine-room.  Miss Thompkins was dressed in lacy white, with a string of many tinted beads round her slim neck.  Her tawny hair was arranged in a large fluffiness, and the ensemble showed to a surprised Audrey what Miss Thompkins could accomplish when she deemed the occasion to be worthy of an effort.

“Shall we?  What makes you think so, dear?” absently asked Audrey, in whom the scene had induced profound reflections upon life and the universe.

“He’ll come up on deck,” said Miss Thompkins, disclosing her teeth in an inscrutable smile that the moonbeams made more strange than it actually was.  “Like to know how I know?  Sure you’d like to know, Mrs. Simplicity?” Her beads rattled above Audrey’s insignificant upturned nose.  “Isn’t a yacht the queerest little self-contained state you ever visited?  It’s as full of party politics as Massachusetts; and that’s some.  Well, I didn’t use all my medicine you gave me.  Didn’t need it.  So I’ve shared it with him.  I got the empty packet with all the instructions on it, and I put two of my tablets in it, and if he hasn’t swallowed them by this time my name isn’t Anne Tuckett Thompkins.”

“But you don’t mean he’s been——­”

“Audrey, you’re making a noise like a goose.  ’Course I do.”

“But how did you manage to——­”

“I gave them to Mr. Price, with instructions to leave them by the—­er—­bedside.  Mr. Price is a friend.  I hope I’ve made that plain these days to everybody, including Mr. Gilman.  Mr. Price is a good sample of what painters are liable to come to after they’ve found out they don’t care for the smell of oil-tubes.  I knew him when he always said ‘Puvis’ instead of ‘Puvis de Chavannes.’  He’s cured now.  If I hadn’t happened to know he’d be on board I shouldn’t have dared to come.  He’s my lifebuoy.”

“But I assure you, Tommy, Mr. Gilman refused the stuff from me.  He did.”