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each other, for we none of us know when we may be placed in a similar plight
ourselves."
After he left me, I was not long in following the good advice he had given
me; and when I had once reached my couch, fell into a dreamless sleep, from
which I did not wake until after eight o'clock next morning.
Indeed, I don't know that I should have waked even then, had I not been
disturbed by the noise made by someone entering the cabin. It proved to be
the doctor.
"How are you feeling this morning?" he asked, when he had felt my pulse.
"Ever so much better," I replied. "In fact, I think I'm quite myself again.
How is Miss Maybourne?"
"Still progressing satisfactorily," he answered. "She bids me give you her
kind regards. She has been most constant in her enquiries after your
welfare."
I don't know whether my face had revealed my secret, or whether it was only
supposition on his part, but he looked at me pretty hard for a moment, and
then laughed outright.
"You may not know it," he said, "but when all's said and done, you're a jolly
lucky fellow."
I sighed, and hesitated a moment before I replied.
"I'm afraid you're mistaken," I said. "Luck and I have never been companions.
I doubt if there is a man in this world whose career has been more devoid of
good fortune than mine. As a boy, I was unlucky in everything I
undertook. If I played cricket, I was always either bowled for a duck's egg,
or run out just as I was beginning to score. If there was an accident in the
football field, when I was playing, I was invariably the sufferer. I left
Oxford under a cloud, because I could not explain something that I knew to be
a mistake on the part of the authorities. I quarrelled with my family on the
same misunderstanding. I was once on the verge of becoming a millionaire, but
illness prevented my taking advantage of my opportunity; and while I was thus
delayed another man stepped in and forestalled me. I had a legacy, but it
brought me nothing but illluck, and has finally driver me out of England.!"
"And since then the tide of illfortune has turned," he said. "A beautiful and
wealthy girl falls overheard you dive in, and rescue her. I have heard about
that, you see. The ship you are travelling by goes to the bottomyou save your
own and the same girl's life. Then, as if that is not enough, you try your
luck a third time; and, just as a terrible fate seems to be going to settle
you for good and all, we heave in sight and rescue you. Now you have Miss
Maybourne's gratitude, which would strike most men as a more than desirable
possession, and at the same time you will have her father's."
"And, by the peculiar irony of fate, both come to me when I am quite
powerless to take advantage of them."
"Come, come, you mustn't let yourself down like this. You know very well what
the end of it all will be, if you spend your life believing yourself to be a
marked man."
"You mean that I shall lose my reason? No, no! you needn't be afraid of that.
I come of a hardheaded race that has not been in the habit of stocking
asylums."
"I am glad of that. Now what do you say to getting up? I'll have your
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breakfast sent to you in here, and after you've eaten it, I'll introduce you
to some of the passengers. On the whole, they are a nice lot, and very much
interested in my two patients."
THE LUST OF HATE
CHAPTER VIII. WE ARE SAVED!
80
I thanked him, and, to show how very much better I felt, sprang out of bed
and began to dress. True to his promise, my breakfast was brought to me by a
steward, and partook of it on the chartroom table. Just as I
I
finished the doctor reappeared, and, after a little conversation, we left the
cabin and proceeded out on to the deck together. Here we found the majority of
the passengers promenading, or seated in their chairs. Among them I noticed
two clergymen, two or three elderly gentlemen of the colonial merchant type,
a couple of dapper young fellows whom I set down in my own mind as belonging
to the military profession, the usual number of elderly ladies, half a dozen
younger ones, of more or less fascinating appearances, and the same number of
children. As soon as they saw me several of those seated rose and came to
meet us. The doctor performed the necessary introductions, and in a few
minutes I found myself seated in a comfortable deckchair receiving
innumerable congratulations on my recovery. Strange to say, I did not dislike
their sympathy as much as I had imagined I should do. There was something so
spontaneous and unaffected about it that I would have defied even the most
sensitive to take offence. To my astonishment, I discovered that no less than
three were personal friends of Miss Maybourne's, though all confessed to
having failed in recognising her when the boat came alongside. For the
greater part of the morning I remained chatting in my chair, and by midday
felt so much stronger that, on the doctor's suggestion, I ventured to
accompany him down to the saloon for lunch. The
King of Carthage was a finer vessel in every way than the illfated
Fiji
Princess.
Her saloon was situated amidships, and could have contained the other twice
over comfortably. The appointments generally were on a scale of great
magnificence; and, from what I saw at lunch, the living was on a scale to
correspond. I sat at a small table presided over by the doctor, and situated
near the foot of the companion ladder. In the pauses of the meal I looked
round at the fine paintings let into the panels between the ports, at the
thick carpet upon the floor, the glass dome overhead, and then at the
alleyways leading to the cabins at either end. In which direction did Miss
Maybourne's cabin lie, I wondered. The doctor must have guessed what was
passing in my mind, for he nodded his head towards the afteralley on the
starboard side, and from that time forward I found my eyes continually
reverting to it.
Luncheon over, I returned to the promenadedeck, and, after a smokethe first
in which I had indulged since we left the islandacted on the doctor's advice,
and went to my cabin to lie down for an hour or so.
When I returned to the deck, afternoon tea was going forward, and a chair
having been found for me, I was invited to take a cup. "While I was drinking
it, the skipper put in an appearance. He waited until I had finished, and
then said he would like to show me something if I would accompany him along
the deck to his private cabin. When we reached it, he opened the door and
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