said he, "is a great blow. One becomes
indifferent to what is said of, or done to, one's self; but that all
this uncommon, saddening, sickening trouble should come upon Robert is
too bad. It seems a kind of hacking and hacking, bit by bit."

"You are certainly very fond of him," said Pensee.

"Yes, I am. He's so dependable."

Pensee engaged a private cabin for the crossing, and she retired there
with her maid. Too tired and over-strung to sleep, she lay down, closed
her eyes, and lived again through the many fatiguing, agitating moments
of that day. Her affection for Orange had been so steeped in
hopelessness from the hour, months before, when he told her of his love
for Brigit, that the wedding of these two had been a relief rather than
a final anguish. The agonising possibilities which had sometimes darted
into her mind would never again surprise her: the questions which she
had always striven to prohibit were no longer even in existence. He had
taken the unredeemable step: he was married. Jealousy had no part in her
suffering. Robert had never given her the smallest right to feel
slighted, or neglected, or abandoned. Some women are jealous by
temperament, but the greater number are jealous only when their trust is
insulted or their dignity brought down to the humiliating struggle for a
lost empire. Empire over Orange she had never possessed or claimed: she
could feel no bitterness, therefore, at the thought of the small place
she occupied in his destiny. The sorrow which cut and severed her heart
was loneliness. She felt that, after the wedding, she could hardly do
anything or take interest in anything. It seemed as if the waters were
gathered in heaps on either side; things, she thought, could not be
better, or worse. God was with her still, and her children--her dear
children--were with her still, but she could not disguise the greatness
of the loss. Her single wish, as far as she dared have a wish, had been
to benefit Robert and to win his confidence. She had seen his mind
working in various directions, and although she was not, in the faintest
sense, his fit companion intellectually, she had a knowledge and
experience of life which made her friendship valuable--a gift worth
offering to any man. She had been able to advise him. Brigit now had
even this privilege also. "I shall seem an intruder," thought Pensee,
again and again.

It was altogether a terrible crisis. How she should struggle through all
the part