Laura looked at him with profound appreciation of these details.  She knew Colonel Markin by reputation, he had done a great work among the Cingalese.  “It was trained,” she said, casting down her eyes, “on the battlefields of our Army.”

Colonel Markin attempted to straighten his shoulders and to stiffen his chin.  He seemed vaguely aware of a military tradition which might make it necessary for him, as a very senior officer indeed, to say something.  But the impression was transitory.  Instead of using any rigour he held out his hand.  Laura took it reverently, and the bones shut up, like the sticks of a fan, in her grasp.  “Welcome, comrade!” he said, and there was a pause, as there should be after such an apostrophe.

“When you came among us this afternoon,” Colonel Markin resumed, “I noticed you.  There was something about the way you put your hand over your eyes when I addressed our Heavenly Father that spoke to me.  It spoke to me and said, ’Here we have a soul that knows what salvation means—­there’s no doubt about that.’  Then when you raised a Hallelujah I said to myself, ’That’s got the right ring to it.’  And so you’re a sister in arms!”

“I was,” Laura murmured.

“You was—­you were.  Well, well—­I want to hear all about it.  It is now,” continued Colonel Markin, as two bells struck and a steward passed them with a bugle, “the hour for our dinner, and I suppose that you too,” he bent his head respectfully towards the other half of the ship, “partake of some meal at this time.  But if you will seek us out again at the meeting between four and five I shall be at your service afterwards, and pleased,” he took her hand again, “Pleased to see you.”

Laura went back to the evening meeting, and after that missed none of these privileges.  In due course she was asked to address it, and then her position became enviable from all points of view, for people who did not draw up their chairs and admire her inspirations sat at a distance and admired her clothes.  Very soon, at her special request, she was allowed to resign her original place at table and take a revolving chair at the nine o’clock breakfast, one o’clock dinner, and six o’clock tea which sustained the second saloon.  Daily, ascending the companion ladder to the main deck aft she gradually faded from cognisance forward.  There they lay back in their long chairs and sipped their long drinks, and with neutral eyes and lips they let the blessing go.

In the intervals between the exercises Miss Filbert came and went in the cabin of three young Salvationists of her own sex.  They could always make room for her, difficult as it may appear; she held for them an indefinite store of fascination.  Laura would extend herself on a top berth beside the round-eyed Norwegian to whom it belonged, with the cropped head of the owner pillowed on her sisterly arm, and thus they passed hours, discussing conversions as medical