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amounted to sheer insult! It was not as if it had been a thin or scrawny bird, Tobermory felt. He sulked on the berth and would not purr.
    Up on the boat deck, Miss Hildegarde Withers relaxed in a deck chair. The wind was warm and brisk, and it came sweeping across the ship’s bow, almost from the direction of England. London would have to be awfully interesting, Miss Withers felt, to make up for this voyage. She felt vaguely annoyed by the little mystery, the tempest in a teapot, which had spoiled the dinner party. There had been something in the attitude of the girl in white which worried Miss Withers. She had been afraid of something, that slim proud Fraser girl.
    Looking up, Miss Withers saw the girl of whom she had been thinking. Rosemary Fraser was coming along the dimly lit, windswept deck, wearing nothing but her white evening dress and an incongruous scarf, a long, trailing banner of a scarf of midnight blue.
    “Child alive!” said Miss Withers to herself. “You’ll catch your death of cold!”
    Her chair was set in the shadow of a lifeboat, and evidently the oncoming girl did not see her. Rosemary leaned far over the starboard rail, amidships of the vessel, and stared out at the misty darkness of the night. She was smoking a dark cigarette, and its sparks trailed gayly into the blackness.
    “I ought to tell her to go back to her cabin and get a warm coat,” said Miss Withers again. But she did not rise. After all, these young people of today had a physical resistance which was unknown in those distant days when Hildegarde Withers was a girl. They could drink innumerable cocktails, dance all night, and go out into the winter winds with only the sheerest of silk stockings, the lightest of underwear and dresses…
    “Perhaps we are developing a race that has a wonderful physical stamina,” mused Miss Withers. “Ten years or more of prohibition beverages must kill off the weak ones, at least.” She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “I wonder if they have the mental stamina that we had to develop,” she asked herself. “I wonder if they could—if they can—”
    Her drowsy musings were interrupted by a worried feminine voice. “Excuse me,” said Candida Noring, leaning over Miss Withers’ deck chair. “I’m looking for Miss Fraser. I know she came up here—have you seen her?”
    “Why,” gasped Miss Withers, “she’s at the rail, right there…”
    Her voice trailed off, for Rosemary Fraser was not standing by the rail. She was not on the deck, not anywhere.
    “I came up the forward ladder,” said Candida, in a puzzled tone. “She didn’t pass me. If she isn’t here, she must have come past you.”
    But Miss Withers hadn’t heard the click of high heels on the wooden deck. “She didn’t pass me,” declared the school teacher. “She must be here somewhere!”
    Bewildered, the school teacher rose to her feet. Candida Noring drew closer to her and shivered.
    “Rosemary!” she cried once, into the wind.
    Only the wind answered, in a language that they could not understand. But Rosemary Fraser was gone.

Chapter III
Confetti Blown Away
    “S HE’S TRIED TO KILL HERSELF!” cried Candida Noring. Miss Withers rose from her deck chair and automatically consulted the tiny watch which was pinned to her bosom. It was three minutes past eleven.
    They were both at the rail, staring down at the phosphorescent flurry of foam which slipped by the iron side of the ship. On either side the huge lifeboats towered, lashed down beneath their heavy canvas.
    “They can lower a boat!” Candida thought aloud. “They can stop the ship and—” She ran forward along the deck, but Miss Withers caught her arm.
    “Wait,” said the school teacher. “Child, hadn’t you better make sure? I heard no splash. She might have slipped past you in the darkness, or hidden here behind a lifeboat until you passed. I can’t believe—did she have any real reason to take her life?”
    Candida Noring shook