I am trying, you see, to set all this down as simply as I can. And here, perhaps, I ought to attempt some sort of a description of June. All I can say is that she had reddish hair and clear blue eyes and wasn't quite as good-looking as her mother. One thing she was, anyhow, that her mother had never been; she was English--the independent, honest, freckled product of the English boarding-school and college, plus that shy and unanalysable something that makes the difference between a girl and a woman. All the way to London I had the impression that she was doing what she could to put me at my ease, and that Helen was doing just the opposite. We reached Euston at five o'clock, dined at the Belgravia, and caught the evening boat-train from Victoria. At Dover heavy rain was falling, and the omens for the crossing were distinctly bad. June was a poor sailor and went below immediately; I secured a cabin for her, and tipped a stewardess to make her comfortable. I suggested that Helen should join her, but she wouldn't; she could stand the roughest passage, she said, provided she stayed on deck in the fresh air. "If you'll leave me here," she said, "with a rug and a mackintosh, I shall be perfectly well. And now you'd better get a cabin for yourself or else stake out a claim in the men's smoking-room." "You don't wish me to share the wind and the rain with you?" She replied: "Well, frankly, since you ask me, I'm not particularly keen...." II There was no doubt about the weather; as soon as the harbour was left behind, the ship began to sway and shiver sickeningly. I chatted for a while with one of the stewards; he told me uncomfortingly that a storm in July was rather rare, but that when it did come it was usually severe. All the time we were talking I could hear the wind rising to gale ferocity; there were also intermittent rumblings of thunder. I felt an obligation to look after Helen, despite her rudeness to me, so I climbed on deck and met her dragging a deck-chair along one of the companionways; she handed it to me rather sulkily, remarking that she was looking for a spot that was better sheltered from the rain and spray. I said I would find one for her, and we staggered with difficulty along the heaving decks. With the port-lights falling on them, the waves looked like rolls of dark moorland peaked with snow. Then, quite suddenly, one of them lifted over the edge and mounted towards us in a huge black wall; we just managed to escape its full onrush, and were immediately and peremptorily ordered below by a ship's officer.