, several opportunities to
obtain a new view of her bridegroom's character before their voyage
across the Atlantic was over. At this period of the slower and more
cumbrous weaving of the Shuttle, the world had not yet awakened even to
the possibilities of the ocean greyhound. An Atlantic voyage at times
was capable of offering to a bride and bridegroom days enough to begin
to glance into their future with a premonition of the waning of the
honeymoon, at least, and especially if they were not sea-proof, to wish
wearily that the first half of it were over. Rosalie was not weary, but
she began to be bewildered. As she had never been a clever girl or quick
to perceive, and had spent her life among women-indulging American men,
she was not prepared with any precedent which made her situation clear.
The first time Sir Nigel showed his temper to her she simply stared at
him, her eyes looking like those of a puzzled, questioning child. Then
she broke into her nervous little laugh, because she did not know what
else to do. At his second outbreak her stare was rather startled and she
did not laugh.

Her first awakening was to an anxious wonderment concerning certain
moods of gloom, or what seemed to be gloom, to which he seemed prone. As
she lay in her steamer chair he would at times march stiffly up and
down the deck, apparently aware of no other existence than his own,
his features expressing a certain clouded resentment of whose very
unexplainableness she secretly stood in awe. She was not astute enough,
poor girl, to leave him alone, and when with innocent questionings she
endeavoured to discover his trouble, the greatest mystification she
encountered was that he had the power to make her feel that she was in
some way taking a liberty, and showing her lack of tact and perspicuity.

"Is anything the matter, Nigel?" she asked at first, wondering if she
were guilty of silliness in trying to slip her hand into his. She was
sure she had been when he answered her.

"No," he said chillingly.

"I don't believe you are happy," she returned. "Somehow you seem so--so
different."

"I have reasons for being depressed," he replied, and it was with a
stiff finality which struck a note of warning to her, signifying that it
would be better taste in her to put an end to her simple efforts.

She vaguely felt herself put in the wrong, and he preferred that it
should be so. It was the best form of preparation for any mood he might
see that