What of Little Miss Grouch, while all these momentous happenings were in progress? Events had piled up on her sturdy little nerves rather too fast even for their youthful strength. The emotional turmoil of which the Tyro was the cause, the tension of meeting her father again, and, on top of these, the startling occurrences on the deck of the tender had stretched her endurance a little beyond its limit, and it was with a sense of grateful refuge that she had betaken herself to the hospitality of Lady Guenn's cabin. What transpired between the two women is no matter for the pen of a masculine chronicler. Suffice it to note that Lord Guenn, surcharged with instructions to be casual, set out to find the Tyro, and, having found him, blurted out:-- "I say, Smith, Cecily's in our cabin. If I were you I'd lose no time getting there. It's the only one on the port side aft." No time was lost by the Tyro. He found Cecily alone. At sight of her face, his heart gave one painful thump, and shriveled up. "You've been crying," he said. "I haven't!" she denied. "And if I have, there's enough to make me cry." "What was it?" was his sufficiently lame rejoinder. "I imagine if you'd seen your father beaten and kicked as I saw mine--" "I didn't know who it was." "But if you had been shaken and cursed, yourself--" "Cursed? Who cursed you?" "You did." "I!" "You said, 'D-d-damn you, let me go!'" "I did _not_. I simply told you to let me go." "Well you might as well have said 'Damn you!' You meant it," whimpered Little Miss Grouch. "She might have been drowned," said the Tyro. "So might you. I saved your life by not letting you go in after her. And you haven't a spark of gratitude." "Well," began the Tyro, astounded at this sudden turn of strategy, "I _am_--" "Go on and curse some more," she advised. "I suppose you'd have kicked _me_ if I hadn't let go." He stared at her, speechless. "Now you've made me cu-cu-cry again. And my nose is all red. _Isn't_ my nose all red? Say 'Yes.'" "Yes," said the bewildered young man, obediently. "And I'm hoarse as a crow. _Am_ I? Say it!" "Y-y-yes," he stammered. "And I'm homely and frowsy, and dowdy and horrid and a perfect mess. Am I a mess? Say--" "_No!_" The rebel in the Tyro broke bonds. "You're the loveliest and most adorable and sweetest thing on this earth, and I love you." "I--I think you might have said it before," said Little Miss Grouch in a very wee voice. "I'd no business to say it at all. But I simply couldn't go without--" "Go?" she cried, startled. "Where?" "Away. It doesn't matter where." "Away from me?" "Yes." She faced him with leveled eyes, tearless now, and infinitely pleading. "You couldn't do that," she said. "I must." "After--after last night, on deck? And--and now--what you've just said?" "I can't help it, dear," he said miserably. "I've been talking with your father." "Is it--is it our money?" "Yes." "Are you a coward?" she flashed. "Afraid of what people would say?"