rosty day, with a light wind
ruffling from the North-west, she swept away, out of sight of Bevisham,
and the island, into the Channel, to within view of the coast of France.
England once below the water-line, alone with Beauchamp and Dr. Shrapnel,
Jenny Denham knew her fate.

As soon as that grew distinctly visible in shape and colour, she ceased
to be reluctant. All about her, in air and sea and unknown coast, was
fresh and prompting. And if she looked on Beauchamp, the thought--my
husband! palpitated, and destroyed and re-made her. Rapidly she underwent
her transformation from doubtfully-minded woman to woman awakening
clear-eyed, and with new sweet shivers in her temperate blood, like the
tremulous light seen running to the morn upon a quiet sea. She fell under
the charm of Beauchamp at sea.

In view of the island of Madeira, Jenny noticed that some trouble had
come upon Dr. Shrapnel and Beauchamp, both of whom had been hilarious
during the gales; but sailing into Summer they began to wear that look
which indicated one of their serious deliberations. She was not taken
into their confidence, and after awhile they recovered partially.

The truth was, they had been forced back upon old English ground by a
recognition of the absolute necessity, for her sake, of handing
themselves over to a parson. In England, possibly, a civil marriage might
have been proposed to the poor girl. In a foreign island, they would be
driven not simply to accept the services of a parson, but to seek him and
solicit him: otherwise the knot, faster than any sailor's in binding,
could not be tied. Decidedly it could not; and how submit? Neither Dr.
Shrapnel nor Beauchamp were of a temper to deceive the clerical
gentleman; only they had to think of Jenny's feelings. Alas for us!--this
our awful baggage in the rear of humanity, these women who have not moved
on their own feet one step since the primal mother taught them to suckle,
are perpetually pulling us backward on the march. Slaves of custom,
forms, shows and superstitions, they are slaves of the priests. 'They are
so in gratitude perchance, as the matter works,' Dr. Shrapnel admitted.
For at one period the priests did cherish and protect the weak from
animal man. But we have entered a broader daylight now, when the sun of
high heaven has crowned our structure with the flower of brain, like him
to scatter mists, and penetrate darkness, and shoot from end to end of
earth; and must we still be