Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER THREE Next morning, she was destined to find out. Breakfast over, she returned to her cabin in search of Marie. As she went down the passage, she was met by a thin little lilt of song, Schubert, this time, and hence, orthodox. At the door of her room, the end one of the passage and just underneath the bridge, she found Haydock, her steward. Haydock was short and blowsy, owner of a cast in his eye, a dubious knee joint, and a heart of purest gold, a heart which he had laid at Aileen's feet, the noon before. Likewise, he possessed a stentorian voice and absolutely no respect of persons. " Gentleman next door has got a nice voice, Miss Warburton; has n't he ? " he demanded cheerily. Schubert faltered, lost a note, then went on, with what manifestly was a sturdy determination to ignore the gallery. " Very," Miss Warburton answered softly. " And it does me good to hear them sing," Hay- dock continued, still in his own mood of lusty cheer. " It makes the time pass nicely for all around, and a man that sings is never half so likely to be seasick; he keeps his pores open, as it were. A dozen doses of Mother Sill are n't half so useful as a good bit out of the music halls, like that he 's singing." This time, when Schubert faltered, he flickered and went out completely. Aileen, as she shut the doorbehind Haydock's retreating back, could not find it in her heart of hearts to wonder. Marie was invisible, doubtless busy with the trunks in her own cabin; so, after an interval, Aileen gave up waiting for her, and, novel in one hand and a vast silvery veil trailing across the other arm, she opened the door and started to step out into the passage. Unhappily, the passage was a narrow one, and some one else had stepped out into it ahead of her, the unseen singer opp...