On entering my berth I threw myself into my bunk and sat in it in such a despondent condition of mind as I had never before been sensible of. This, to be sure, signified no more than reaction following the wild excitement I had been under all the morning. But, let the cause be what it might, whilst the fit was on me I felt abjectly miserable, and a complete wretch. It then occurred to me that hunger might have something to do with my mood, seeing that no food had crossed my lips since dinner time on the preceding day.

It was about two o’clock in the afternoon. I entered the cabin and found a cold lunch upon the table, not a dish of which had been touched, proving that there were others besides myself who were fasting. I was without appetite, but I sat down resolutely, and calling to the steward—who seemed thankful to have an order to attend to—to bring me a bottle of Burgundy, I fell to, and presently found myself tolerably hearty; the fountain of my spirits unsealed afresh, and beginning leisurely to bubble into the channel that had run dry. There is no better specific in the world for a fit of the blues than a bottle of Burgundy. No other wine has its art of tender blandishments. It does not swiftly exhilarate, but courts the brain into a pleasing serenity by a process of coaxing at once elegant and convincing.

Whilst I sat fondling my glass, leaning back in my chair with my eyes fixed upon the delicate, graceful paintings on the cabin ceiling, and my mind revolving, but no longer blackly and weepingly, the grim incidents which had crowded the morning, I heard my name pronounced close at my ear, and, whipping round, found Miss Laura at my elbow.

[236]

‘I have been most anxious to see you,’ she exclaimed. ‘What is the news?’

‘Have you not heard?’ I inquired.

‘I have heard nothing but two pistol shots. I have seen nobody of whom I could ask a question.’

‘Wilfrid has shot Colonel Hope-Kennedy through the heart,’ said I, ‘as he declared he would, and the body lies yonder;’ and I pointed to the recess that Muffin had formerly occupied.

‘Colonel Hope-Kennedy killed!’ she exclaimed, in a low, breathless, terrified voice; and she sank into a chair beside me, and leant her face on her hand speechless, and her eyes fixed upon the table.

‘Better that he should have been shot than Wilfrid,’ said I. ‘But he is dead; of him, then, let us speak nothing since we cannot speak good. I have just succeeded in fighting myself out of a hideous mood of melancholy with the help of yonder bottle. Now you must let me prescribe for you. You have eaten nothing since dinner yesterday. I therefore advise a glass of champagne and a slice of the breast of cold fowl;’ and that she might not say no, I put on an air of bustle, called to the steward to immediately open a pint bottle of champagne, helped her to a little piece of the fowl, and, finding her still reluctant, gently insinuated a knife and fork into her hands. ‘We are homeward bound,’ said I; ‘see! the sun has slipped t’other side of the yacht. Our bowsprit points directly for dear old Southampton Water. So,’ said I, filling a glass of champagne and handing it to her, ‘you must absolutely drink to our prosperous voyage, not only to the ship that goes, but to the wind that blows, whilst,’ said I, helping myself to another small dose of Burgundy, ‘I’ll drink the lass that loves a sailor.’

She could not forbear a slight smile, drank, and then ate a little, and presently I saw how much good it did her by the manner in which she plucked up her heart. I asked her where Lady Monson was.

‘In my cabin,’ she answered; ‘she will not speak to me; she asks my maid for what she requires; she will not even look at me.’

‘It is all too fresh yet,’ said I. ‘A little patience, Miss Jennings. The woman in her will break through anon; there will be tears, kisses, contrition. Who knows?’

She shook her head. Just then I caught sight of the maid, beckoned to her, exclaiming to Miss Laura, ‘Your sister must not be allowed to starve. I fear she will have known what hunger is aboard Captain Crimp’s odious old barque, where the choicest table delicacy probably was rancid salt pork. Here,’ said I to the maid, ‘get me a tray. Steward, open another bottle of champagne. You will smile at the cook-like view I take of human misery, Miss Jennings,’ said I; ‘but let me tell you that a good deal of the complexion the mind wears is shed upon it by the body.’

[237]

I filled the tray the maid brought, and bade her carry it to her ladyship, and to let her suppose it was prepared by the steward. I then thought of Wilfrid, and told Miss Laura that I would visit him. ‘But you will stop here till I return,’ said I. ‘I want you to cheer me up.’

I went to my cousin’s cabin and knocked very softly. The berth occupied by Lady Monson was immediately opposite, and the mere notion of her being so near made me move with a certain stealth, though I could not have explained why I did so. There was no response, so, after knocking a second time very lightly and obtaining no reply, I entered. Wilfrid lay in his bunk. The porthole was wide open, and a pleasant draught of air breezed into the cabin. He lay in his shirt, the collar of which was wide open, and a pair of silk drawers, flat on his back, his arms crossed upon his breast, like the figure of a knight on a tomb, and his eyes closed. I was startled at first sight of him, but quickly perceived that his breast rose and fell regularly, and that, in short, he was in a sound sleep. Quite restful his slumber was not, for whilst I stood regarding him he made one or two wry faces, frowned, smiled, muttered, but without any nervous starts or discomposure of his placid posture. I was seized with a fit of wonder, and looked about me for some signs of an opiate or for any hint of liquor that should account for this swift and easy repose, but there was nothing of the sort to be seen. He had fallen asleep as a tired child might, or as one who, having accomplished some great object through stress of bitter toil and distracting vigil, lightly pillows his head with a thanksgiving that he has seen the end. I returned to Miss Jennings marvelling much, and she was equally astonished.

‘Conceive, Mr. Monson,’ she exclaimed, ‘that the whole may have passed out of his memory!’

‘I wish I could believe it,’ said I. ‘No, he has just lain down as a boy might who is tired out and dropped asleep. A man is to be envied for being wrongheaded sometimes. If I had shot the Colonel—— but we agreed not to speak of him. Miss Jennings, you are better already. When you arrived just now you were white, your eyes were full of worry and care, you looked as if you would never smile again. Now the old sparkle is in your gaze, and now you smile once more, and your complexion has gathered afresh that golden delicacy which I must take the liberty of vowing as a friend I admire as a most surprising perfection in you.’

‘Oh, Mr. Monson,’ she exclaimed softly, with one of those little pouts I was now used to and glad to observe in her again, whilst something of colour came into her cheeks, ‘this is no time for compliments.’

Nevertheless she did not seem ill pleased, spite of her looking downwards with a gravity that was above demureness. At that moment Cutbill and Crimp came down the companion ladder, pulling off their caps as they entered. The big sailor had a roll of what resembled sailcloth under his arm. They passed forward[238] and disappeared in the cabin that had been occupied by Muffin. Miss Laura noticed them, but made no remark. It was impossible that she should suspect their mission. But the sight of them darkened the brighter mood that had come to me out of the companionship of the girl, and I fell grave on a sudden.

‘Will you share your cabin with your sister?’ I asked.

‘No; she cannot bear my presence. My maid will prepare for me the berth adjoining my old one. She must be humoured. Who can express the agonies her pride is costing her?’

‘I fear Wilfrid sleeps rather too close to her ladyship,’ said I. ‘There’s a cabin next mine. I should like to see him in it. Figure his taking it into his head in an ungovernable fit of temper to walk in upon his wife——’

‘If such an impulse as that visited him,’ she answered, ‘it would be all the same even if he should sleep amongst the crew forward. Do not anticipate trouble, Mr. Monson. The realities are fearful enough.’

I smiled at her beseeching look. ‘Lucky for your sister,’ said I, ‘that you are on board. She arrives without a stitch saving what she stands up in, and here she finds your wardrobe, the two-score conveniences of the lady’s toilet table, and a maid on top of it all, with pins and needles and scissors, bodkins and tape—bless me! what a paradise after the “’Liza Robbins.”’ And then I told her how the ‘Shark’ was lost, giving her the yarn as I had it from Finn. ‘Anyway,’ said I, ‘Lady Monson is rescued. Your desire is fulfilled.’

‘But I did not wish her—I did not want Colonel Hope-Kennedy killed,’ she exclaimed with a shudder.

‘Yet you could have shot him,’ said I; ‘do you remember our chat that night off the Isle of Wight?’

‘Yes, perfectly well,’ she answered. ‘But now that he is dead—oh, it is too terrible to think of,’ she added with a sob in her voice.

‘It must always be so with generous natures,’ I exclaimed. ‘What is abhorrent to them in life, death converts into a pathetic appeal. Best perhaps to leave old Time to revenge one’s wrongs. And now that her ladyship is on board, what is Wilfrid going to do with her?’

‘She is never likely to leave her cabin,’ she replied.

‘When the “Bride” arrives home, then?’

‘I cannot tell.’

‘Had Wilfrid’s misfortune been mine this is the consideration that would have stared me in the face from the very start and hindered me from taking any step that did not conduct me straight to the Divorce Court.’

Here her maid arrived and whispered to her, on which, giving me a pretty little sad smile, she rose and went to her cabin. I mounted to the deck and found the wide ocean shivering and flashing under a pleasant breeze of wind, whose hot buzzing as it hummed[239] like the vast insect life of a tropic island through the rigging and into the canvas, was cooled to the ear by the pleasant noise of running waters on either hand. My first look was for the ‘’Liza Robbins,’ and I was not a little surprised to find her far away down upon our lee quarter, a mere dash of light of a moonlike hue. Finn was pacing the quarterdeck solemnly with a Sunday air upon him. On seeing me he approached with a shipshape salute and exclaimed:

‘I suppose there is no doubt, sir, his honour designs that we should be now steering for home?’

‘For what other part of the world, captain?’

‘Well, sir, at sea one wants instructions. Maybe Sir Wilfrid knows that we’re going home?’

‘He lies sleeping as soundly and peacefully, Finn, as a little boy in his cabin, and knows nothing.’

‘Lor’ bless me!’ cried Finn.

‘But you may take me as representing him,’ said I, ‘and I’ll be accountable for all misdirections. About the funeral now. I observed Cutbill and Crimp pass through the cabin. They’ve gone to stitch the body up.’

‘Yes, sir. His honour told me to get it done at once. ’Sides, ’tain’t a part of the ocean in which ye can keep the like of them things long.’

‘When do you mean to bury him?’

‘Well, I thought to-night, sir, in the first watch. Better make a quiet job of it, I allow, for fear of——’ and screwing up his face into a peculiar look, he pointed significantly to the deck with clear reference to Lady Monson.

‘You are right, Finn. We have had “scenes” enough, as scrimmages are called by women.’

‘Will your honour read the orfice?’

‘D’ye mean the burial service? It will be hard to see print by lantern light.’

‘I’ve got it, sir, in a book with the letters as big as my forefinger.’

I considered a little and then said, ‘On reflection, no. You are captain of this ship, and it is for you, therefore, to read the service. I will be present, of course.’

He looked a trifle dismayed, but said nothing more about it, and, after walking the deck with him for about half an hour, during which our talk was all about the ‘Shark’ and the incidents of the morning, what the crew thought of the duel and the like, I went below to my berth, and lay down, feeling tired, hot, and again depressed. I was awakened out of a light sleep by the ringing of the first dinner bell. Having made ready for dinner I entered the cabin as the second bell sounded, and found the table prepared, but no one present. I was standing at the foot of the companion ladder, trying to cool myself with the wind that breezed down of a fiery hue with the steadfast crimsoning of the westering sun, when Wilfrid came from his cabin. He was dressed as if for a ball—swallow-tail[240] coat, patent leather boots, plenty of white shirt sparkling with diamond studs, and so forth. Indeed, it was easily seen that he had attired himself with a most fastidious hand, as though on a sudden there had broken out in him a craze of dandyism. I was much astonished, and stared at him. There had never been any ceremony amongst us; in point of meals we had made a sort of picnic of this marine ramble, and dined regardless of attire. Indeed, in this direction Wilfrid had always shown a singular negligence, often in cold weather sitting down in an old pilot coat, or taking his place during the hot days in white linen coat and small-clothes or an airy camlet jacket.

‘Why, Wilf,’ said I, running my eye over him, ‘you must give me ten minutes to keep you in countenance.’

‘No, no,’ he cried, ‘you are very well. This is a festal day with me, a time to be dignified with as much ceremony as the modern tailor will permit. Heavens! how on great occasions one misses the magnificence of one’s forefathers. I should like to dine to-day in the costume of a Raleigh, a doublet bestudded with precious gems, a short cloak of cloth of gold. Ha, ha! a plague on the French Revolution—’tis all broadcloth now. Where’s Laura?’ He asked the question with a sudden breaking away from the substance of his speech that startlingly accentuated the wild look his eyes had and the expression of countenance that was a sort of baffling smile in its way.

‘I do not know,’ I answered.

‘Oh, she must dine with us,’ he cried; ‘I want company. I should like to crowd this table. Steward, call Miss Jennings’ maid.’

The man stole aft and tapped on the cabin next to the room occupied by Lady Monson. Miss Jennings opened the door and looked out. Wilfrid saw her, and instantly ran to her, with his finger upon his lip. He took her by the hand and whispered. She was clearly as much amazed as I had been to behold him attired as though for a rout. There was a little whispered talk between them; she apparently did not wish to join us; then on a sudden consented, and he led her to the table, holding her hand with an air of old-world ceremony that must have provoked a smile but for the concern and anxiety his looks caused me. We took our places, and he fell to acting the part of host, pressing us to eat, calling for champagne, talking as if to entertain us. He laughed often, but softly, in a low-pitched key, and one saw that there was a perpetual reference in his mind to the existence of his wife close at hand, but he never once mentioned her nor referred to the dead man whose proximity put an indescribable quality of ghastliness into his hectic manner, the crazy air of conviviality that flushed, as with a glow of fever, his speech, and carriage, and behaviour of high breeding. Not a syllable concerning the events of the morning, the objects of our excursion, its achievement, the change of the yacht’s course escaped him. He drank freely, but without any[241] other result than throwing a little colour upon his high cheek-bones and rendering yet more puzzling the conflicting expressions which filled with wildness his large, protruding, near-sighted gaze at one or the other of us. I saw too clearly how it was with the poor fellow to feel shocked. Miss Laura’s tact served her well in the replies she made to him, in the interest with which she seemed to listen to his conversation, in her well-feigned ignorance of there being anything unusual in his apparel or manner. But it failed her in her efforts to conceal her deep-seated apprehension, that stole like a shadow into her face when she looked downwards in some interval of silence that enabled her to think, or when her eyes met mine.

After dinner my cousin fetched his pipe and asked me to join him on deck. I took advantage of his absence to say swiftly to Miss Laura, ‘We must not forget that Lady Monson is on board. Upon my word, I believe you are right in your suggestion this afternoon that Wilfrid has forgotten all about it, or surely he would have made some reference to her dining.’

‘I’ll take care that she is looked after, Mr. Monson,’ she answered. ‘I purposely abstained from mentioning her name at dinner. I am certain, by the expression in his face, that he would have been irritated by the lightest allusion to her, and unnatural as his mood is after such a morning as we have passed through,’ here she glanced in the direction of the cabin where the Colonel’s body lay, ‘I would rather see him as he is than sullen, scowling, silent, eating up his heart.’

He returned with his pipe at t............