CHAPTER XVI.
HER CABIN COMPANION.
“There’ll be one other lady with you in your cabin, miss.”
The berth-steward’s announcement in no way disconcerted Madge Finisterre. She had had two cabin companions on the outward voyage.
She was arranging her cabin necessaries when her fellow-traveller entered. She was a wee, winsome girl, very fragile in appearance, with a yearning sweetness in her great grey eyes, such as Madge had never seen in any eyes before. With half-a-dozen words of exchanged greeting and a very warm handshake, the pair became instant friends.
By a strange but happy coincidence neither of them ever suffered from sea-sickness, and from the first moment of the great liner’s departure they became inseparable.
As the vessel forged her way down Channel that evening, a glorious moon shining down upon them, the two girls, arm-in-arm, paced the promenade deck talking. The subject of the acute distress among the poor and out-of-works in all the world’s great cities came up between them.
“Oh, if only our Lord would come quickly!” cried the girl—Kate Harland was her name.
“What do you mean, Kate?” Madge’s voice was full of amazed wonder.
“I mean that——”