pable of the emotions and sensations which crowd their
quick hearts and fill their throats with sighs. This may be very well
too; but, for my part, I have generally observed that lovers have a
very great deal to talk about. Remark an engaged couple; sooner than
be silent they will whisper if there be company present; and when
alone, or when they think themselves alone, their tongues--particularly
the girl's--are never still. Grace and I were of a talking
age--two-and-twenty, and one not yet eighteen; our minds had no
knowledge of life, no experience, nothing in them to keep them steady;
they were set in motion by the lightest, the most trivial breath of
thought, and idly danced in us in the manner of some gossamer-light,
topmost leaf to the faintest movement of the summer air.

She withdrew to her berth at ten o'clock that night with a radiant face
and laughing eyes, for inane as the evening must have shown to others,
to us it had been one of perfect felicity; not a single sigh had
escaped her, and twice had I mentioned the name of Mrs. Howe without
witnessing any change of countenance in her.

I went on deck to take a last look round, and found all well; no change
in the weather, the breeze a brisk and steady pouring out of the north,
and Caudel pacing the deck well satisfied with our progress. I
returned below without any feeling of uneasiness, and sat at the cabin
table for some ten minutes or so to smoke out a cigar, and to refresh
myself with a glass of seltzer and brandy. A sort of dream-like
feeling came upon me as I sat. I found it hard to realise that my
sweetheart was close to me, separated only by a curtained door from the
cabin I was musing in. What was to follow this adventure? Was it
possible that Lady Amelia Roscoe would oppose any obstacle to our union
after even _this_ association of three or four days as it might be? I
gazed at the mirrors I had equipped the cabin with--picked up a
handkerchief my sweetheart had left behind her and kissed it--stared at
the little silver shining lamp that swung over my head--pulled a flower
and smelt it in a vacant sort of way of which, nevertheless, I was
perfectly sensible.... Is there anything wrong with my nerves
to-night? thought I.

I extinguished my cigar and went to bed. It was then about a quarter
to eleven, and till past one I lay awake, weary, yet unable to sleep.
I lay listening to the frothing and seething of the water thrashing
along the bend