vailed
sufficiently over the torpor that possessed him to induce him to look at
our fellow passenger.

"Do you know that charming person?" I asked.

"No," he replied, with the weariest indifference. "I never saw her
before. I'm tired--tired--tired! Don't speak to me; leave me by myself."

I left him. His rare personal attractions--of which, let me add, he
never appeared to be conscious--had evidently made their natural appeal
to the interest and admiration of the young lady who had met him by
chance. The expression of resigned sadness and suffering, now visible
in his face, added greatly no doubt to the influence that he had
unconsciously exercised over the sympathies of a delicate and sensitive
woman. It was no uncommon circumstance in his past experience of the
sex--as I myself well knew--to be the object, not of admiration only,
but of true and ardent love. He had never reciprocated the passion--had
never even appeared to take it seriously. Marriage might, as the phrase
is, be the salvation of him. Would he ever marry?

Leaning over the bulwark, idly pursuing this train of thought, I was
recalled to present things by a low sweet voice--the voice of the lady
of whom I had been thinking.

"Excuse me for disturbing you," she said; "I think your friend wants
you."

She spoke with the modesty and self-possession of a highly-bred woman.
A little heightening of her color made her, to my eyes, more beautiful
than ever. I thanked her, and hastened back to Romayne.

He was standing by the barred skylight which guarded the machinery. I
instantly noticed a change in him. His eyes wandering here and there, in
search of me, had more than recovered their animation--there was a wild
look of terror in them. He seized me roughly by the arm and pointed down
to the engine-room.

"What do you hear there?" he asked.

"I hear the thump of the engines."

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing. What do _you_ hear?"

He suddenly turned away.

"I'll tell you," he said, "when we get on shore."

SECOND SCENE.--VANGE ABBEY.--THE FOREWARNINGS

VI.

As we approached the harbor at Folkestone, Romayne's agitation appeared
to subside. His head drooped; his eyes half closed--he looked like a
weary man quietly falling asleep.

On leaving the steamboat, I ventured to ask our charming
fellow-passenger if I could be of any service in reserving places in the
London train for her mother and herself. She thanked me, and said they
were going t