After that the terrible became merely the sordid. In the lower saloons the occupants were horridly inert and comatose; many were engulfed in the varying throes of _mal de mer_; most were grimly unhappy. The smells of oil and stale cooking were all-pervading; intermittent crashes told of casualties in the pantries; the ship's engines groaned like the breathing of a pneumonia sufferer. All this I relate, not as descriptive padding, but to show how force of circumstances drove Helen and me together that night. I suggested first of all that she should share June's cabin, but after visiting it and finding June comfortably asleep, she returned to say that she would rather do anything than lie down. "Then," I said, "there remains the bar. It's probably the most cheerful spot on the whole boat, and French beer isn't a bad sort of tonic." She said: "You'll have to take me then," and I nodded and took her. We hung on to the counter and heard the bartender being violently sick behind the scenes. And she said: "I suppose you think you're heaping coals of fire on my head?" "How so?" "By being kind to me after I've been rude to you." "Well--you certainly _have_ been rude to me, haven't you?" "Yes," she replied simply. And after a pause she added: "I rather loathe the sentimental way you assume that everything else is going to be forgotten just because of what's happened to Geoffrey." "Well?" "I suppose you thought I was going to welcome you with open arms on Liverpool landing-stage, eh?" "Not in the least. I only hoped that our desire to help Geoffrey would enable us to treat each other civilly." Her eyes flashed. "Yes, that sounds as if I'm in the wrong, doesn't it? But let me tell you this--that though I _am_ going to help Geoffrey, my feelings towards him remain exactly as they were before." "And what were they?" She said quietly: "I don't like him. I don't care what you think of me for saying it--it's the honest truth. And I'm not sentimental enough to think that a railway-accident can make any difference." The beer came then, and a sudden lurch of the boat sent half of it spilling over our hands. The bartender, white-faced and dishevelled, retired again to endure his sufferings in solitude. She went on, more quickly: "Oh, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking of Geoffrey as _you_ know him--how decent he's been to you, and all that. He _has_ been decent to you, I'll admit--he's been decent enough to me in _that_ sort of way. But--oh, Hilton--I'm friends with you again now, and I must tell you--he's not _straight_--you know what I mean, don't you? He's not the sort of man you can _trust_!" "Good heavens, I think I'd trust my life to him----" She interrupted: "I daresay you would. I daresay a lot of people would.... Perhaps I ought to have said that he's not the sort of man his wife can trust."