After a while the doctor came down the line and looked at each of us, stopping for a moment's chat. The more serious cases were below, and all that any of us needed was a little encouragement. "Won't you sit down a minute, doctor?" I asked, when he came to me, and motioned to Mr. Royce's chair. "Why, you're not sick!" he protested, laughing, but he dropped into the vacant place. "It wasn't about myself I wanted to talk," I said. "How's your other patient--the one who came aboard last?" His face sobered in an instant. "Martigny is his name," he said, "and he's in very bad shape. He must have been desperately anxious to get back to France. Why, he might have dropped over dead there on the gang-plank." "It's a disease of the heart?" "Yes--far advanced. He can't get well, of course, but he may live on indefinitely, if he's careful." "He's still confined to his bed?" "Oh, yes--he won't leave it during the voyage, if he takes my advice. He's got to give his heart just as little work as possible, or it'll throw up the job altogether. He has mighty little margin to go on." I turned the talk to other things, and in a few moments he went on along his rounds. But I was not long alone, for I saw Miss Kemball coming toward me, looking a very Diana, wind-blown and rosy-cheeked. "So _mal-de-mer_ has laid its hand on you, too, Mr. Lester!" she cried. "Only a finger," I said. "But a finger is enough. Won't you take pity on a poor landsman and talk to him?" "But that's reversing our positions!" she protested, sitting down, nevertheless, to my great satisfaction. "It was you who were to be the entertainer! Is our Mephisto abroad yet?" she asked, in a lower tone. "I, too, am feeling his fascination--I long for another glimpse of him." "Mephisto is still wrestling with his heart, which, it seems, is scarcely able to furnish the blood necessary to keep him going. The doctor tells me that he'll probably spend the voyage abed." "So there'll be nothing for us to do, after all! Do you know, Mr. Lester, I was longing to become a female Lecoq!" "Perhaps you may still have the chance," I said gloomily. "I doubt very much whether Mephisto will consent to remain inactive. He doesn't look to be that sort." She clapped her hands, and nodded a laughing recognition to one of the passing promenaders. "You're going to Paris, aren't you, Miss Kemball?" I asked. "To Paris--yes. You too? You must be, since you're going to France." "We go first to Etretat," I said, and stopped, as she leaned, laughing, back in her chair. "Why, what's wrong with that?" I demanded, in some astonishment. "Wrong? Oh, nothing. Etretat's a most delightful place--only it recalled to me an amusing memory of how my mother was one day scandalized there by some actresses who were bathing. It's the prettiest little fishing-village, with the finest cliffs I ever saw. But it's hardly the season for Etretat--the actresses have not yet arrived. You'll find it dull."