She looked in a mirror. In the clear light without, any one could see she had been crying, and there was so much work to be done that she did not wish to remain in her stateroom until all tokens of the storm had passed. She searched for a powder-puff, and was at a loss to discover its whereabouts until she recollected that the doctor had borrowed it for the use of a man slightly scalded when his own supply of antiseptic powder was exhausted. So she went into Isobel’s room, entering it for the first time since the _Kansas_ struck on the shoal. The two cabins communicated, as Mr. Baring had gone to the expense of having a door broken through the partition for the girls’ use during the voyage. If Elsie had not already given way to tears she must have faltered now at the sight of her friend’s belongings strewed in confusion over the floor, chairs, dressing-table, and bed. Isobel possessed a gold-mounted dressing-case the size of an ordinary portmanteau. It held an assortment of pretty, and mostly useless, knick-knacks, and they had all been tumbled out in a frantic hurry. At first Elsie flinched from further scrutiny, but common sense told her that this despondent mood must be fought. She dropped to her knees, found a mother-o’-pearl _poudrier_, and picked up other scattered articles and replaced them in the dressing-case. To accomplish this it was necessary to rearrange various trays and drawers. Portraits of girl friends, including her own, and of men unknown to her, letters, memoranda, and other documents, were thrown about in disorder. All these she put back in their receptacles, wondering the while what motive had led Isobel to make such a frenzied search for some special object that she cared not a jot what became of the remaining articles. Yet, who could account for the frenzy of that terrible hour when the captain announced the ship’s danger? Even Courtenay himself, she remembered, had emptied a locker in a rapid hunt for the dog’s coat; but he had laughingly explained his haste later when some chance reference was made to his soaked garments. Anything was explicable in the light of panic. She gathered up a skirt and some blouses, locked the dressing-case, put the key in her purse, and quitted the room with a heavy heart, for the handling of her friend’s treasures had brought sad memories.