"Because," said Muriel, compressing her full lips and assuming her full height, "I always tell Jim everything." If the shadow of a smile passed beneath his military moustache, she could not be sure of it. "Everything?" said he. "But you have said that this was nothing." "Exactly, and--don't you see?--that is one of the reasons why I haven't told it. You will--you will please not refer to it to him, Captain von Klausen, because----" "Refer to it?" Von Klausen squared his shoulders. "To him? Never!" His assertion was vehement. "There is no reason why you shouldn't," Muriel replied; "only, as I say, I haven't told him, and the only real reason that I didn't tell him was because to do so I should have to tell him, too, that you had been afraid; and that isn't my secret: it's yours." The Austrian's boyish face was now very grave. "I thank you," he said. "For your thought of me I thank you, and the more I thank you because, by keeping my secret, you made it _ours_." "Oh, but I don't mean----" said Muriel. She did not finish, for she saw Stainton come from the writing-room and stride rapidly toward them. He had written his letter and despatched it. Although the three stood shoulder to shoulder in the customs-shed at Cherbourg later in the day and occupied the same first-class compartment in the fast express through the rolling Norman country to Paris, Muriel and von Klausen were not then given an opportunity to conclude their conversation. The Austrian bade the Staintons good-bye in the swirl of porters and chauffeurs at the Gare St. Lazare, and Muriel took it for granted that the interruption must be final. XI DR. BOUSSINGAULT Muriel awoke in their apartments at the Chatham the next morning to find herself decidedly out of sorts. Well as she had borne the voyage, she no sooner put her feet from her one of the two little canopied beds to the floor than she felt again the motion of the ship, and there was a return of the nausea that she attributed to the trouble which silently weighed upon her. She crawled back to the bed. "I can't get up," she said. Stainton was worried. He fluttered about her. He wanted to ring for servants to bring half-a-dozen things that Muriel would not accept. He wanted the smallest details of her symptoms. He wanted to send for a doctor. "Go away," Muriel pleaded. "Please go away." "But, dearie----" "I wish I were back in New York." Stainton, though he now feared the sea, was ready to undertake the return trip on the morrow. "No, no," moaned Muriel. "Of course, now we are here, we must see things. But I won't have a doctor, Jim. Can't you see how it is with me? I shall be all right in an hour." "All right, dearie; all right. I shall sit here by you." "Please don't. I'm horrid when I'm sick." "Not to me," said Jim. "But I am. I look so horrid." "I don't see it."