From this girl and all connected with her he had been cut off by his trial and his sentence. Had it not been for the storm and the wreck, he would never have spoken to one of her kind again.
Suddenly he realized that her eyes were open and that she was regarding him curiously. The next instant she blushed furiously and struggled to her feet. Howard did not offer to help her; he did not dare to.
“Oh!” she begged. “Please forgive me.”
Howard mumbled something indistinct. He was too much surprised to speak clearly. Miss Fairfax, however, did not accept his presumably polite disclaimer.
“No, but really,” she reiterated, “I owe you an apology. It was very silly of me to faint. I was exhausted, and the discovery——”
“The discovery that you were alone at sea with a detective and a convicted murderer appalled you—as well it might. Do not blame yourself, Miss Fairfax, and do not think that I am sensitive. No man can go through an experience such as mine and fail to have his cuticle thickened. Give yourself no uneasiness about me.”
Dorothy began to reply, when suddenly the dinner-gong rang out imperatively.
“What’s that?” she gasped.
Howard smiled. “That’s Jackson,” he explained, “and he’s hungry. Will you come to dinner?”
But Dorothy did not come to dinner at once. When she did, ten minutes later, after a visit to her state-room, which luckily was far aft and consequently above water, Howard noted with amused surprise that in those few minutes she had managed to bind up her tangled hair and change her dress for another. She glanced at the table as she approached and flushed at Jackson’s glum looks.