The next morning I went to Boyd Madras's cabin. He welcomed me
gratefully, and said that he was much better; as he seemed; but he
carried a hectic flush, such as comes to a consumptive person. I said
little to him beyond what was necessary for the discussion of his case.
I cautioned him about any unusual exertion, and was about to leave, when
an impulse came to me, and I returned and said: "You will not let me help
you in any other way?"

"Yes," he answered; "I shall be very glad of your help, but not just yet.
And, Doctor, believe me, I think medicines can do very little. Though I
am thankful to you for visiting me, you need not take the trouble, unless
I am worse, and then I will send a steward to you, or go to you myself."

What lay behind this request, unless it was sensitiveness, I could not
tell; but I determined to take my own course, and to visit him when I
thought fit.

Still, I saw him but once or twice on the after-deck in the succeeding
days. He evidently wished to keep out of sight as much as possible. I
am ashamed to say there was a kind of satisfaction in this to me; for,
when a man's wife--and I believed she was Boyd Madras's wife--hangs on
your arm, and he himself is denied that privilege, and fares poorly
beside her sumptuousness, and lives as a stranger to her, you can
scarcely regard his presence with pleasure. And from the sheer force of
circumstances, as it seemed to me then, Mrs. Falchion's hand was often on
my arm; and her voice was always in my ear at meal-times and when I
visited Justine Caron to attend to her wound, or joined in the chattering
recreations of the music saloon. It was impossible not to feel her
influence; and if I did not yield entirely to it, I was more possessed by