The room was dark when she opened the door. There was a
little light in the chart-room, from the binnacle lantern. The door
at the top of the companionway was always closed at night; the light
came through the window near the wheel."
She had kept up very well to this point, telling her story calmly and
keeping her voice down. But when she reached the actual killing of
the Danish maid, she went to pieces. She took to shivering
violently, and her pulse, under my fingers, was small and rapid. I
mixed some aromatic spirits with water and gave it to her, and we
waited until she could go on.
For the first time, then, I realized that I was clad only in shirt
and trousers, with a handkerchief around my head where the accident
in the hold had left me with a nasty cut. My bare feet were thrust
into down-at-the-heel slippers. I saw Miss Lee's eyes on me, and
colored.
"I had forgotten," I said uncomfortably. "I'll have time to find
my coat while she is recovering. I have been so occupied--"
"Don't be a fool," Mrs. Johns said brusquely. "No one cares how you
look. We only thank Heaven you are alive to look after us. Do you
know what we have been doing, locked in down here? We have been--"
"Please, Adele!" said Elsa Lee. And Mrs. Johns, shrugging her
shoulders, went back to her salts.
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