“Where is—­my husband?” she said, stumbling over the word and feeling sick with fright.

“Over there with his pals.  They aren’t half having a game.  If I was you I’d go and rout him out!  Not much use in a honeymoon when one’s boozed and the other ain’t.  Now if you was to have a drop too—­”

She did not hear what he said.  She did not stop to think of dignity or anything else; the same panic that had almost made her jump overboard at Melbourne sent her running across the quay, over the gangway on to the ship.  The voices of the men guided her towards them on the silent ship.  Louis was sitting on the hatchway; two champagne bottles were overturned beside him; he was just pouring whisky from a bottle into a tumbler as he saw her.

His jaw dropped and he tried to stand up.

“Here’s your missus,” laughed Ole Fred, who was leaning against him.

Marcella looked from Louis to Fred.

“So you didn’t go to New Zealand?” said Marcella quietly, looking at him with blazing eyes.  He blinked at her and tried to smile affably.

“Of course I never thought you would, you horrible, wicked, idiotic old liar!” she said.

Ole Fred looked thoroughly startled.  Louis gazed at Marcella and then at him.

“Now, ole man—­I pu’ it to you,” said Ole Fred thickly.  “Is tha’ the sort of talk you le’ your wife use to your bes’ pals?”

Louis shook his head reprovingly at her.

“Marsh-shella!  Naughty lil’ girl!  ‘Pol’gize!  Good Ole Fred!  Bes’ pal ev’ man had, Mar-shella!  Going t’ Newze-eeelan’!  All ’lone—­way from ’smother—­way from Ole Country!  Give him kish, ole girl—­no ill-feeling—­”

Ole Fred got up unsteadily, grinning, and lurched towards her muttering, “No, no ill-feeling.”  She realized what he was going to do, and suddenly felt that she could not live any longer.  But first—­her father’s temper came to her for a moment and she lost all responsibility.  It was the first time the Lashcairn madness had seized her—­and it was not the raging Berserk fury of her father.  She stood quite still, very white.  Ole Fred thought she was waiting passively for his kiss.  But when he reached her on his unsteady feet she caught him by the shoulders, shook what little breath he had left out of him, and slid him deliberately along the deck.  He was too surprised to resist effectively and the others had no idea what was in her mind.  Reaching the rail of the ship, with the strength of madness she lifted him up—­he was a thin little rat of a man—­and dropped him calmly overboard.  There was a heavy plonk and a rush of feet as Knollys, who had watched fascinated, ran down the companion-way with another man.  She looked at her hands distastefully.

“You’re very foolish if you rescue him, Knollys,” she said, with an air of giving impartial advice.  “He’s not a bit of good.  I knew quite well I’d put some of these idiotic men in the sea before I’d done with them.”