s of land in a reverie upon which I
would not intrude, so sweet did she look with her profile showing with
ivory-like delicacy against the green and blue of the east where the
tints were hardening to the gathering of the evening shadow there,
whilst her rich hair blown by the breeze seemed to tremble into fire to
the now almost level pouring of the red splendour in the west.

When the sun had fairly set I took her below, for the wind seemed to
come on a sudden with the damp of night in it, and a bite as shrewd in
its abruptness as frost. I had made no other provision in the shape of
amusement for our sea trip of three, four, or five days as it might
happen, than a small parcel of novels, scarcely doubting that all the
diversion we should need must lie in each other's company. And to be
sure we managed to kill the time very agreeably without the help of
fiction, though we both owned, when the little cabin clock pointed to
half-past nine, and she looking up at it, and yawning behind her white
fingers, exclaimed, that she felt tired and would go to bed; I say, we
both owned that the day had seemed a desperately long one--to be sure,
with us it had begun very early--and I could not help adding that on
the whole a honeymoon spent aboard a yacht the size of the _Spitfire_
would soon grow a very slow business in spite of crayons and
paint-boxes.

As we lingered hand in hand, she exclaimed, "What will mam'selle have
been saying all to-day?"

"The excitement," said I, "has been tremendous. Mam'selle fainted to
begin with. Father Jerome was sent for, and I can see him with my
mind's eye taking the ground as he makes for the chateau with the
strides of a pantomime policeman chasing the clown. What titterings,
what exclamations, what _Mon Dieux!_ and _quelle horreurs!_ among the
girls! How many of them would like to be you? When they find that
rope-ladder dangling--the burglarious bull's-eye lamp at the foot of
it--"

"How _could_ we have done it?" she interrupted, looking at me with a
pale face and a working lip.

When she had withdrawn I put on a pea-coat, and filling a pipe, stepped
on deck. The dusk was clear, but of a darker shade than that of the
preceding night; there was not more wind than had been blowing
throughout the day; but the sky was full of large swollen-clouds
rolling in shadows of giant wings athwart the stars, and the gloom of
them was in the atmosphere. Here and there showed a ship's light, some