"Then he had no home of his own in England?"
"No. The house my aunts occupy and several others in Sunderland were his, but he never lived in any of them."
"He made a will, I suppose?"
"Yes, it's among those papers that I handed over to you. I know everything's left to me, because he told me so when he made his will."
"H'm, then you're not so badly off after all. I should strongly advise you to go to California and see what you can do with the fruit-farm. It's both a healthy and remunerative occupation I've been told."
The girl nodded, but made no answer.
"What I propose to do is to take you to Singapore and place you under the protection of the British Consul, who, no doubt, will advise you concerning the proving of your father's will and so forth, for I know nothing of such matters."
"It's very kind of you," murmured the girl.
"Well now, I think that's all we can arrange for the present," said Calamity in a tone which intimated that the interview was at an end.
She rose, and, with a murmured "Good-night," left the cabin and mounted the companion-way to the deck. Slowly, as one in a dream, she made her way to her cabin, casting no glance at the unruffled sea with its millions of scintillating reflections. Her bold statement to Calamity, admittedly a declaration of love, had met with a rebuff which would have induced in most women a feeling of intolerable shame and, in all probability, inspired them with a lasting hatred of the man who had so humiliated them. But this was not the case with Dora Fletcher; she felt neither shame nor anger. Indeed, she would have been puzzled to say exactly what her feelings were, so incoherent and altogether strange were they. But she knew she had met a hitherto unrecognised force; that she had been awed not so much by a man as by a mysterious something inherent in him; by a quality rather than an individual.