It was Miss Temple. She started as I quitted my leaning posture and turned to her.
‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ she exclaimed in a changed note.
It was very clear she had mistaken me—for Colledge, for all I can tell. She was alone. Yet had she come from the cuddy, she must certainly have seen the young sprig playing at the table with Fairthorne at chess.
‘I should be glad to answer your question,’ said I coolly, ‘if you care to stop and listen, Miss Temple.’
By the starlight I could see her fine imperious dark eyes bent on me.
‘It is curious,’ she exclaimed—and perhaps by daylight I should have found some sign of a smile in her face; but her countenance showed like marble in that shadow—‘that this should be the second time I have asked you about what is happening in the ship. You have been a sailor, I think, Mr. Dugdale?’
‘Mr. Colledge has doubtless told you so,’ said I.
‘Yes; it was he who told me. You share his cabin, I believe. Will you tell me if it be true that one of the sailors has died?’
‘It is true,’ said I; ‘a sailor named Crabb died this morning.’
‘Has he been buried?’