This confirmed and augmented if possible Mr.Powell's good opinion of her as a "jolly girl," though it seemed to him positively monstrous to refer in such terms to one's captain's wife.

"But she doesn't look it," he thought in extenuation and was going to say something more to her about the lighting of that flare when another voice was heard in the companion, saying some indistinct words.

Its tone was contemptuous; it came from below, from the bottom of the stairs.

It was a voice in the cabin.

And the only other voice which could be heard in the main cabin at this time of the evening was the voice of Mrs.Anthony's father.