“Where have you been, Jim?” she asked quietly, noticing his white face, his tumbled hair, and a certain disorder in his appearance.  Jim did not answer, and after a puzzled moment Julia repeated her question.

“Up on deck,” Jim said, a bitter burst of words breaking through his ugly silence.  He dropped into a chair, and put his head in his hands.

Julia watched him for a few moments in silence, while she went on with her preparations.  She wound her little watch and put it under her pillow; she folded the counterpanes neatly back from both beds, and got out her slippers.  Then she sat down to put trees into the little satin slippers she had been wearing, and carried them to the closet.

Suddenly Jim sat up, dropped his hands, and stared at her haggardly.

“Julia,” said he hoarsely, “I’ve been up there thinking—­I’m going mad, I guess—­”

He stopped, and there was silence.  Julia stood still, looking at him.

“Tell me,” Jim said, “was it Mark?”

The hideous suddenness of it struck Julia like a bodily blow; she stood as if she had been turned to ice.  A great weight seemed to seize her limbs, a sickening vertigo attacked her.  She had a suffocating sense that time was passing, that ages were going by in that bright, glaring room, with the sea air coming in a shuttered window, and the two beds, with their smooth white pillows, so neatly turned down—­Still, she could not speak—­not yet.

“Yes, it was Mark,” she said tonelessly and gently, after a long silence.  “I thought you knew.”

“Oh, my God!” Jim said, choking.  He flung his hands madly in the air and got on his feet.  Then, as if ashamed, through all the boiling surge of his emotions, at this loss of control, he rammed his hands into the pockets of his light overcoat, and began to pace the room.  “You—­you—­you!” he said, in a sort of wail, and in another moment, muttering some incoherency about air, he had snatched up his cap and was gone again.

Julia slowly crossed the room, and sat down on her bed.  She felt as a person who had swallowed a dose of poison might feel:  agonies were soon to begin that would drive the life from her body, but she could not feel them yet.  Instead she felt tired, tired beyond all bearing, and the lights hurt her eyes.  She slipped her kimono from her, stepped out of her slippers, and plunged the room into utter darkness.  Like a tired child she crept into bed, and with a great sigh dropped her head on the pillow.

The ship plowed on, its great lights cutting a steady course over the black water, its whole bulk quivering to the heartbeat of the mighty engines; whispered good-nights and laughing good-nights were said in the narrow, hot hallways.  Lights went out in cabin after cabin.  The decks were dark and deserted.  Below stairs the world that never slept hummed like a beehive; squads of men were washing floors, laying tables; the kitchen was as hot and busy as at midday; the engine rooms were filled with silhouetted forms briskly coming and going.  Up on one of the dark decks, with the soft mist blowing in his face, Jim spent the long night, his folded arms resting on the rail, his sombre eyes following the silent rush of waters, and in her cabin Julia lay wide awake and battling with despair.