"What, Kervyn?" she faltered, kneeling on the lounge beside the half dazed man. "What happened? Why are you so ghastly pale? Are we really quite safe? Or are you trying to make it easier for me——"
"No; you and I are safe enough for the moment," he said. "But men are dying out yonder. The sea is full of dead men, Karen. And—I saw it all."
"I heard guns. What has happened?"
"I don't know. It was a mine perhaps, perhaps a torpedo. A ship has been blown up." He lifted his head and turned to her: "But you are not to say such a thing to anybody—after I leave you at Trois Fontaines."
"No, Kervyn."
"Not to anybody. Not even to your father. Do you understand me, Karen?"
"No. But I won't tell anybody."
"Because," he explained wearily, "the Admiralty may have reasons for concealing it. If they mean to conceal it, this ship of ours will be stopped again and held for a while in some French or British port."
"Why?"
"So that the passengers cannot talk about what they saw tonight."