He
_had_ gone above, my man was sure; he hadn't gone to the old lady's
cabin. I catch again the sense of my dreadfully seeing something at that
moment, catch the wild flash, under the steward's words, of Jasper
Nettlepoint leaping, with a mad compunction in his young agility, over
the side of the ship. I hasten to add, however, that no such incident
was destined to contribute its horror to poor Grace Mavis's unwitnessed
and unlighted tragic act. What followed was miserable enough, but I can
only glance at it. When I got to Mrs. Nettlepoint's door she was there
with a shawl about her; the stewardess had just told her and she was
dashing out to come to me. I made her go back--I said I would go for
Jasper. I went for him but I missed him, partly no doubt because it was
really at first the Captain I was after. I found this personage and
found him highly scandalised, but he gave me no hope that we were in
error, and his displeasure, expressed with seamanlike strength, was a
definite settlement of the question. From the deck, where I merely
turned round and looked, I saw the light of another summer day, the coast
of Ireland green and near and the sea of a more charming colour than it
had shown at all. When I came below again Jasper had passed back; he had
gone to his cabin and his mother had joined him there.
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