She was conscious of a quality in his tone and manner entirely strange to her, and she found any form of answer exceedingly difficult. The anger which she would have preferred to have affected seemed, in the face of his earnestness, out of place. "It seems to me," she said, "that you are assuming something which does not exist. I am not on specially intimate terms with Mr. Jocelyn Thew. I have not talked to him any more than to any other casual passenger." "Is that quite honest?" he asked quietly. "Isn't it true that Jocelyn Thew is interested in your mysterious patient?" She started. "What do you mean?" "Just what I say," he replied. "I happen also to have very grave suspicions concerning the presence on this ship of Mr. Phillips and his doctor." Her fingers gripped the side of her deck chair. She leaned a little towards him. "What concern is all this of yours?" she demanded. "Never mind," he answered. "I am risking more than I should like to say in telling you as much as I have told you. I cannot believe that you would consciously associate yourself with a disgraceful and unpatriotic conspiracy. That is why I have chosen to risk a great deal in speaking to you in this way. Tell me what possible consideration was brought to bear upon you to induce you to accept your present situation?" Katharine sat quite still. The thoughts were chasing one another through her brain. Then she was conscious of a strange thing. Her companion's whole expression seemed suddenly to have changed. Without her noticing any movement, his monocle was in his left eye, his lip had fallen a little. He was looking querulously out seaward. "I don't believe," he declared, "that the captain has any idea about the weather prospects. Look at those clouds coming up. I don't know how you are feeling, Miss Beverley, but I am conscious of a distinct chill." Jocelyn Thew had come to a standstill before them. He was wearing no overcoat and was bare-headed. "I guess that chill is somewhere in your imagination, Mr. Crawshay," he observed. "You are pretty strong in that line, aren't you?" Crawshay struggled to his feet. "I have some ideas," he confessed modestly. "I spend my idle moments, even here, weaving a little fiction." "And recounting it, I dare say," Jocelyn ventured. "I am like all artists," Crawshay sighed. "I love an audience. I must express myself to something. I will wish you good evening, Miss Beverley. I feel inclined to take a little walk, in case it becomes too rough later on." He shuffled away, once more the perfect prototype of the _malade imaginaire_. Jocelyn Thew watched him in silence until he had disappeared. Then he turned and seated himself by the girl's side. "I find myself," he remarked ruminatively, "still a little troubled as to the precise amount of intelligence which our friend Mr. Crawshay might be said to possess. I wonder if I might ask; without your considering it a liberty, what he was talking to you about?"