in spite of all, in spite of reason and feeling alike his
essential buoyancy asserted itself. He could not despair. He had not
been given this vigour of soul and body to sit down under misfortune.
Resignation was for the poor of heart; only cravens gave up while it
was yet possible to act. His fair ship was speeding with him as he
loved to feel her speed; around him spread the vast spaces in which
his spirit rejoiced--salt sea and vaulted heavens; the full air of the
open, the brisk dash of the wind filled him with physical exhilaration
at every breath, and tingled in his veins; the sporting blood, which
had come to him from generations of hunting squires, found all its
craving satisfied in this coursing across the green ocean fields, and
the added element of danger was as the sting of the brine to his
palate. What--despair now? with his perilous enterprise all but
accomplished, the whole world, save one country, before him, and
Madeleine unwed! Another might, but not Jack Smith; not Hubert
Cochrane!

He was actually trolling out the stave of a song as he sprang up the
companion ladder after his rough breakfast in the galley, but the
sound expired at the sight of the distant flutter of a woman's scarf
in the stern of the ship. He halted and ran his fingers through his
crisp hair with an expressive gesture of almost comical perplexity;
all would be plain sailing enough, with hope at the prow again, but
for this--he stamped his foot to choke down the oath of
qualification--this encumbrance. Adrian's wife and Madeleine's sister,
as such entitled to all honour, all care, and devotion; and yet, as
such again, hideously, doubly unwelcome to him!

As he stood, biting his lips, while the gorgeous sunshine of the young
spring morning beat down upon his bare head, the brawny figure of the
mate, his mahogany-tinted face wrinkled into as stiff a grin as if it
had been indeed carved out of the wood in question, intervened between
his abstracted gaze and the restless amber beyond.

"It's a fine day, sir," by way of opening conversation.

The irrepressible satisfaction conveyed by the wide display of
tobacco-stained teeth, by the twinkle in the hard, honest eyes called
up a queer, rueful grimace to the other man's face.

"Do you know, Curwen," he said, "that you brought me the wrong young
lady last night?"

The sailor jumped back in amazement. "The wrong young lady, sir,"
staring with starting, incredulous eyeballs, "the wrong,