Ariadne had been happy for five days beyond the time she had expected to be--five days beyond the one when her husband selected those men out of Lewis Granger's house to go forth and serve the King. For Geoffrey, still looking about in likely quarters, while sending also a press-gang ashore under the command of an old grey-haired lieutenant who had never found promotion--a man old enough to be Geoffrey's father--and still another gang under the command of his master-at-arms, had been enabled to thus long delay his departure. But now--now--the time had come to part; he had the full complement of men their Lordships had directed him to procure, and from their Lordships also had come a message by an Admiralty tender, bidding him sail for the fleets at once.

Wherefore poor Ariadne, tearful and woebegone, was now superintending the preparations necessary for quitting the Mignonne, while Geoffrey was intent on comforting her in every way in his power.

"Yet, cheer up, dear heart," he said again and again to her. "Remember, 'tis not for long at present. Once I have delivered these men into the ships requiring them (and some are no farther off than the Nore), then back I come to seek for more. We shall not fight Conflans yet; he advances not in spite of all his threats to invade us. So, heart up, mine own; in a week the Mignonne will be anchored here once more, and thou on board with thy fond husband."

"But a week, Geoff--a week! Alas! to me it seems an eternity. And then to think of what is to follow. And they say that that corsair, Thurot, is at the mouth of the river. If that should be so!"

"I hope it may. If I could but seize him now, what a feather in my cap 'twould be. He is a brave sea-dog, although he is a Frenchman."

"I shall be distracted during thy absence. I know not what to do. Oh, Geoff, what is to become of me!"

"You are to stay in the lodgings, my dear one," her husband said, "which we have chosen over there;" and he nodded his head towards the shore. "They are sweet and clean, and you can observe our anchorage. Therefore, you will see the Mignonne sail. Also," he added, with a happy thought, "you will see her return. Think on that."

Ariadne did think on it in the hours after he had left her, her husband going on board at midnight in preparation for his departure at dawn. Think on it--ay! indeed she did--as also on his last kiss pressed to her lips before he left, and of many, many others he had given her as the hours flew by and evening turned into night. She thought on it each time she crept from her bed to the window of the lodgings he had taken for her, to see if yet the daybreak was at hand (though she knew well enough that it could not come for still some hours); if yet the ship that held her husband, her lover, was making ready to depart. And always by her side stood Anne, who had been bidden to come and sleep with Ariadne on this the first night of her desolation since she had been married; Anne, who had long since determined never to part from her mistress again.

She had done it once when--in the exuberance of her youthful spirits, and proud of the possession of a good voice, which she knew how to manage in the bravura style, as well as a considerable facility for dancing in a manner fitted to obtain popular applause--she had left her home at Fanshawe Manor to earn her own living in London as a public performer. But, alas! what had been the result? Her little sister who had gone with her as companion, after both had pleaded long and frequently to her mistress and their mother for permission to do so, had encountered ruin at the hands of a scoundrel, and death as the result of her shame; while, for herself, what had happened? What! A life destroyed through her impetuous determination to exact a terrible atonement from the villain who had done her sister to death; an existence destroyed and rendered barren, loveless, and blank, through her tempestuous desire for vengeance.

She had left her mistress once; now she vowed often that never would she do it again. Never again.

"I have indeed made myself an Iphigenia, as Sir Geoffrey calls me," she would say to Ariadne during the passage of those eight months, "by wandering from your and mother's side; but, no more. Henceforth I stay with you, if you will let me."

And the two girls, who had never been parted since they were children, except for that year of a wild life on Anne's part in London: the two girls, of whom one had now become a happy wife, and the other a wife loathing and despising the man whom she had trepanned into marrying her--the man on whom, if chance came in her way, she would exercise still further vengeance--had kissed and embraced each other, and vowed that they would always remain together. For, although Anne called Ariadne her mistress, and was spoken of as the latter's maid and servant, they had from infancy been always more like sisters than aught else, and had grown up together loving each other fondly, while Anne's three extra years of age had made her like the elder and graver sister.

Now, together and alone--since Mrs. Pottle had departed some day or two before to Fanshawe Manor, to which they were to follow later, when the Mignonne would have sailed on her final cruise to join the fleet and take part in fighting France--they watched for the dawn to come; watched knowing that, with it, the lights on the frigate's masts would be put out, the sails be bent, and then--then--Ariadne would be desolate.

At last, the dayspring was at hand. Towards the east, beneath the dark blue and windswept heavens, they saw the primrose hue coming; soon they knew that there would appear a brighter, more vivid yellow, and then the sun, and with that sun, departure. Already poor Ariadne could see, even without the perspective glass which Geoffrey had left behind for her use, that all was excitement and bustle aboard the ship. For by now the pipes were sounding, they could hear the hawsers coming on board, and the men singing too; and then Ariadne, her hand clutching Anne's arm, saw the outer jib loosed to the light south-westerly breeze which was blowing from where London lay.

"Oh, Anne!" she whispered, "it is the first time he has left me since we were wed. The first time, and now he is going. Look at those hateful sails, and--oh! how can they sing?"

"Be brave," said Anne, whose husband was not going away to sea; Anne, who, had he been doing so, would certainly have felt no regret; "heart up, you are a sailor's wife."

But that did not comfort the girl, who watched now, without understanding, everything taking place; for--although she knew not the meaning of fore and main top-gallant sails and spankers, nor anything of mainsails, nor mainroyals and mizzen top-gallants, nor staysails and jibs--she could see that the Mignonne was moving, going down the river towards where the sea was, with on it, perhaps, the great French fleet and also the dreaded Thurot who was reported to be lurking near.

"He sees me!" she cried; "he sees me! Oh, God! he waves a handkerchief from--what is it?--the waist! He sees me--ah! Anne--Anne-............