e the men, and do what I can to
pull them round. It would not do to have a breakdown out here for the
want of sufficient men to work the boat."

So saying he bade me leave him while he dressed, and when this operation
was completed, departed on his errand, while I returned to the saloon. I
had not been there many minutes before the door of Valerie's cabin
opened and my sweetheart emerged. I sprang to my feet with a cry of
surprise and then ran forward to greet her. Short though her illness had
been, it had effected a great change in her appearance, but since she
was able to leave her cabin, I trusted that the sea air would soon
restore her accustomed health to her. After a few preliminary remarks,
which would scarcely prove of interest even if recorded, she inquired
when we expected to reach England.

"About midnight to-night, I believe," I replied; "that is, if all goes
well."

There was a short silence, and then she placed her hand in mine and
looked anxiously into my face.

"I want you to tell me, dear," she said, "all that happened the night
before last. In my own heart I felt quite certain from the first that we
should not get safely away. Did I not say that Pharos would never permit
it? I must have been very ill, for though I remember standing in the
sitting-room at the hotel, waiting for you to return from the steamship
office, I cannot recall anything else. Tell me everything, I am quite
strong enough to bear it."

Thus entreated, I described how she had foretold Pharos's arrival in
Hamburg, and how she had warned me that he had entered the hotel.

"I can remember nothing of what you tell me," she said sadly when I had
finished. Then, still holding my hand in hers, she continued in an
undertone, "We were to have been so happy together."

"Not '_were to have been_,'" I said, with a show of confidence I was far
from feeling, "but '_are to be_.' Believe me, darling, all will come
right yet. We have been through so much together that surely we must be
happy in the end. We love each other, and nothing can destroy that."

"Nothing," she answered, with a little catch of her breath; "but there
is one thing I must say to you while I have time, something that I fear
may possibly give you pain. You told me in Hamburg that up to the
present no case of the plague had been notified in England. If that is
so, darling, what right have we to introduce it? Surely none. Thing of
the misery its coming must inevitably cause