e year, and the _Fanny_ is such a favourite."

The cabin was wide and lofty and airy, quite an exceptional thing in
ladies' cabins; but presently there came a troop of stout matrons with
their olive-branches, all cross and sleepy, and dazed at finding
themselves in a strange place at an unearthly hour. There was the usual
sprinkling of babies, and most of the babies cried. One baby was
afflicted with unmistakable whooping cough, and was a source of terror
to the mothers of all the other babies. There was a general opening of
hand-bags and distribution of buns, biscuits, and sweeties for the
comfort and solace of this small fry. Milk was imbibed noisily out of
mysterious bottles, some of them provided with gutta-percha tubes,
which made the process of refreshment look like laying on gas. Vixen
turned her back upon the turmoil, and listened to the sad sea waves
plashing lazily against the side of the boat.

She wondered what Rorie was doing at this midnight hour? Did he know
yet that she was gone--vanished out of his life for ever? No; he could
hardly have heard of her departure yet awhile, swiftly as all tidings
travelled in that rustic world of the Forest. Had he made up his mind
to keep faith with Lady Mabel? Had he forgiven Vixen for refusing to
abet him in treachery against his affianced?

"Poor Rorie," sighed the girl; "I think we might have been happy
together."

And then she remembered the days of old, when Mr. Vawdrey was free, and
when it had never dawned upon his slow intelligence that his old
playfellow, Violet Tempest, was the one woman in all this wide world
who had the power to make his life happy.

"I think he thought lightly of me because of all our foolishness when
he was a boy," mused Vixen. "I seemed to him less than other
women--because of those old sweet memories--instead of more."

It was a dreary voyage for Violet Tempest--a kind of maritime
purgatory. The monotonous thud of the engine, the tramping of feet
overhead, the creaking and groaning of the vessel, the squalling
babies, the fussy mothers, the dreadful people who could not travel
from Southampton to Jersey on a calm summer night without exhibiting
all the horrors of seasickness. Vixen thought of the sufferings of poor
black human creatures in the middle passage, of the ghastly terrors of
a mutiny, of a ship on fire, of the Ancient Mariner on his slimy sea,
when

The very deep did rot; O Christ,
That ever this should be;
Yea,