I knew that nothing better could occur to my patient than that Justine
Caron should help to nurse him. This would do far more for him than
medicine--the tender care of a woman--than many pharmacopoeias.

Hungerford had insisted on relieving me for a couple of hours at
midnight. He said it would be a good preparation for going on the bridge
at three o'clock in the morning. About half-past two he came to my cabin
and waked me, saying: "He is worse--delirious; you had better come."

He was indeed delirious. Hungerford laid his hand on my shoulder.
"Marmion," he said, "that woman is in it. Like the devil, she is
ubiquitous. Mr. Roscoe's past is mixed up with hers somehow. I don't
suppose men talk absolute history in delirium, but there is no reason,
I fancy, why they shouldn't paraphrase. I should reduce the number of
nurses to a minimum if I were you."

A determined fierceness possessed me at the moment. I said to him: "She
shall nurse him, Hungerford--she, and Justine Caron, and myself."

"Plus Dick Hungerford," he added. "I don't know quite how you intend to
work this thing, but you have the case in your hands, and what you've
told me about the French girl shows that she is to be trusted. But as
for myself, Marmion M.D., I'm sick--sick--sick of this woman, and all her
words and works. I believe that she has brought bad luck to this ship;
and it's my last voyage on it; and--and I begin to think you're a damned
good fellow--excuse the insolence of it; and--good-night."

For the rest of the night I listened to Galt Roscoe's wild words. He
tossed from side to side, and murmured brokenly. Taken separately, and