oubled yellow light in it,
ran with great force; bulky barges floated down swiftly escorted by
tugs; police boats shot past everything; the wind went with the current.
The open rowing-boat in which they sat bobbed and curtseyed across the
line of traffic. In mid-stream the old man stayed his hands upon the
oars, and as the water rushed past them, remarked that once he had taken
many passengers across, where now he took scarcely any. He seemed to
recall an age when his boat, moored among rushes, carried delicate feet
across to lawns at Rotherhithe.

"They want bridges now," he said, indicating the monstrous outline of
the Tower Bridge. Mournfully Helen regarded him, who was putting water
between her and her children. Mournfully she gazed at the ship they were
approaching; anchored in the middle of the stream they could dimly read
her name--_Euphrosyne_.

Very dimly in the falling dusk they could see the lines of the rigging,
the masts and the dark flag which the breeze blew out squarely behind.

As the little boat sidled up to the steamer, and the old man shipped
his oars, he remarked once more pointing above, that ships all the
world over flew that flag the day they sailed. In the minds of both the
passengers the blue flag appeared a sinister token, and this the moment
for presentiments, but nevertheless they rose, gathered their things
together, and climbed on deck.

Down in the saloon of her father's ship, Miss Rachel Vinrace, aged
twenty-four, stood waiting her uncle and aunt nervously. To begin with,
though nearly related, she scarcely remembered them; to go on with, they
were elderly people, and finally, as her father's daughter she must be
in some sort prepared to entertain them. She looked forward to seeing
them as civilised people generally look forward to the first sight of
civilised people, as though they were of the nature of an approaching
physical discomfort--a tight shoe or a draughty window. She was already
unnaturally braced to receive them. As she occupied herself in laying
forks severely straight by the side of knives, she heard a man's voice
saying gloomily:

"On a dark night one would fall down these stairs head foremost," to
which a woman's voice added, "And be killed."

As she spoke the last words the woman stood in the doorway. Tall,
large-eyed, draped in purple shawls, Mrs. Ambrose was romantic and
beautiful; not perhaps sympathetic, for her eyes looked straight and
considered what they sa