"i sed as ow i wud leve yu no, sir, wen mis Jane Evelyn went away,"--he read--"shes gon to America, that is awl i no, sir, she went suddint, or i wud ave towld yu. if i ad munny i wud follo. if the shu fitz, put it awn. Susan Haythorne." CHAPTER VI The six days of the voyage passed uneventfully enough. Jane Blythe, obeying Mrs. Markle's instructions, spoke to no one, and although one or two women, muffled to their eyes in wraps, stared at her in sleepy curiosity from their steamer chairs, and an elderly man restored her head covering, which on one occasion escaped its moorings and blew across the deck, no one attempted to enter into conversation with her. Jane accepted this circumstance as she accepted everything else in her new and strange surroundings. She ate regularly, which could be said of very few of the other passengers, and slept soundly at night after long, delightful days spent on deck in the keen mid-ocean air, and with it all her thin face rounded into a lovely radiance of girlish bloom, which caused the retiring Mrs. Markle to exclaim in fretful amazement. That lady's large, flaccid countenance had assumed a peculiar, olive-green tint which the glaring electric lights in her cabin accentuated to an unpleasant ghastliness. She was very short in her communications with Jane in the brief interviews which took place each day after luncheon. "You spik to anyone since I see you--_n'est-ce-pas_?" she would demand, staring eagerly at Jane from the midst of her pillows. "_Non? Tres bien!_ say nossing to womans asking questions; to mens, nossing. I ha-a-te zem all." "But no one has spoken to me, except to say 'good morning' at the table," Jane made haste to assure her. "Alright--_tres bien_," muttered Mrs. Markle. "Go now--_vite_! and to-morrow--no, next day, we come in port. Zen I tell you one leetle sing you do for me." "I have done nothing for you yet," replied Jane, in genuine distress. "Would you not like me to read aloud to you for a while, or bathe your head with cologne? I should be so glad to do something to make you comfortable." But Mrs. Markle waved her aside with a fretful motion of her dingy, jeweled hands. "Go; make ze voyage as you like. I want nossing--nossing till we come in port. Zen I say what you mus' do. A mos' leetle sing, I tell you." On the last day when the women passengers were beginning to look less like rows of Egyptian mummies put out for an airing, and a buzz of cheerful conversation pervaded the decks and cabins, Jane was astonished to find Mrs. Markle sitting in her stateroom, fully dressed and elaborately frizzled and coiffured, as on the day she had first seen her. "Oh, are you better? I am so glad!" exclaimed Jane. "Won't you come up on deck for a while, and see all the people?"