Chapter 9

Ninth day out. Sixty days has September, April, June and November. From January until May The rain it raineth every day. All the rest have thirty-one Without a single gleam of sun. If any should have thirty-two, They'd be dull and dirty, too! ~ Adapted by Smith for Smith's Log

Rain, fog, mist, drizzle, more rain. Such was the waste world through which the Clan Macgregor wallowed. Other ships passed her, hooting as they went. Small craft began to loom up under her massive bows, and slide away from beneath her towering stern, always eluding Fate, as it seemed, by miraculous inches. And slower and ever slower moved the sea-mammoth, lugubriously trumpeting her distress and dismay at the plight in which she found herself.

Thus and no otherwise would the Tyro have vented his grief and chagrin, had he possessed competent vocal organs, more lost and befogged than the ship which bore him and his sorrow to an alien land. For breakfast had come and gone, and then luncheon and dinner, and nowhere had he caught so much as a glimpse of Little Miss Grouch. At ten o'clock that night he was standing immersed in gloom, within and without, staring out over the rail into a world of blackness. Far out in the void, a bell tolled. The Tyro resumed his purposeless promenade, meditating cheerlessly upon buried hopes.

Now, were individuals required, as are craft, to carry fog signals, this maritime record might be something other than it is. The collision was head on, and the impact severe. The lighter craft recoiled against the rail.

"Oh!" she said.

"You!" cried the Tyro, with the voice of glad tidings.

"How you frightened me!" she said, but the tone indicated more of relief, not to say content, than alarm.

"I'm sorry. Where have you been all day?"

"Packing."

"Oh!" There was a pause. Then: "Lord Guenn doesn't know."

"Doesn't know what?"

"Doesn't know why. I asked him, you know. When you--er--disappeared. So I have to ask you again. Why?"

"Aren't you afraid that when you die you'll change into a question-mark?"

"Not at all. I intend to be answered before I die. Long before. One--two--three; why?"

But she was ready for the question now. "About Mr. Van Dam, you mean?" said she with elaborate carelessness. "Oh, well, you see, I'd be Mrs. Denyse's cousin in that case and, after a week of her, I've concluded that it isn't worth the price."

"Hard-hearted Parent will be displeased."

"I'm afraid so. Perhaps he'll cut me off with a shilling."

"I hope so."

"Now, that isn't a bit kind of you," she complained. "I'm not fitted for poverty. Not that it would be literally a shilling. But to have to do everything on