I suppose, though, that you have often asked yourself why I was guilty of such a mad trick ?" "Not exactly mad, Miss Yorke, but needless, since Captain Coke partly expected to have your company." "That is absurd.

He had not the remotest notion----" "Forgive me, but there you are wrong.

He says that your uncle and he discussed the matter on the Sunday before we left Liverpool.

His theory is rather borne out by the present state of the ship's larder.
I assure you that few tramp steamers spread a table like the _Andromeda's_ mess during this voyage." Iris laughed, with a spontaneous merriment that was rather astonishing in her own ears.
"Being the owner's niece, I am well catered for ?" she cried.
"Something of the sort.

It is only natural." "But I think I have read in the newspapers that when some unhappy creature is condemned to death by the law, he is supplied with luxuries that would certainly be denied to any ordinary criminal ?" "Such doubtful clemency can hardly apply to you, Miss Yorke." "It might apply to the ship, or to that human part of her that thinks, and remembers, and is capable of--of giving evidence." She paused, fearing lest, perhaps, she might have spoken too plainly.
Coke's counter-stroke in alluding to her dread of the proposed marriage was hidden from her ken; Hozier, of course, was thinking of nothing else.