"I 'ave no idea, sir. Orders, sir. I was to hinform the saloon passengers as how they were to go on deck, and women and children into boats."
"All right. Thank you. And, Hames."
"Yes, sir?"
"You hunt up Miss Huttle's maid, and have her tell Miss Huttle to be sure to wrap up warm. Be sure she gets that right—to wrap up warm. Two sets of everything all round. Got that right?"
"Two sets—yes, sir."
"That's all, Hames."
"'K you, sir."
He resumed writing:
And so it has come to write the adieu which I would dread to have to speak. Four days only have I known you, but a man may build his life anew in four days, and this last adventure of mine has been such as in my visionary boyhood days I used to mark out for myself in rosy dreams.
I have the little snapshot you gave me yesterday. I will have it with me to the end, and your face in it will be the last thing I kiss this side of eternity. And so good-by, dear heart, and don't worry for me. Who lives by the sword, et cetera. It had to come to some such ending, I suppose, though rather a joke, isn't it, to be lost on an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic in these days?
To-day with you I saw the sun go down 'twixt purple bars, and what is the little matter of dying to that? And it is a consolation to know you will not mourn me. Good night, dear heart, and may God have ever a tender eye on you.
He sealed the envelope, and very carefully addressed it: "Miss Helen Huttle," placed it in his inside coat-pocket, kissed the little photograph, and placed that also in his inside coat-pocket.