ill take your
choice I'll have the beds got ready."

The berths were aft--mere boxes, each with a little bunk, but all
fitted so as to correspond in point of costliness with the furniture of
the living or state room. We chose the two foremost berths as being
the farthest of the sleeping places from the crew; and this matter
being ended, and after declining Captain Verrion's very civil offer of
refreshments, we returned to the deck.

The steamer was thrashing through it at an exhilarating speed. The
long blue Atlantic surge came briming and frothing to her quarter,
giving her a lift at times that set the propeller racing, but the
clean-edged, frost-like band of wake streamed far astern, where in the
liquid blue of the afternoon that way hung the star-coloured cloths of
the _Carthusian_, a leaning shaft, resembling a spire of ice.

"Bless me!" I cried, "how we have widened our distance! When a man
falls overboard with what hideous rapidity must his ship appear to
glide away from him!"

"Is it not delightful to be independent of the wind, Herbert?"
exclaimed Grace, as she took my arm.

"Yes, but consider the beauty of a tower of canvas compared to that
yellow chimney pot," said I. "The _Carthusian_!" I added, sending my
glance at the distant airy gleam; "we shall never forget her. Yet she
seems but a phantom ship too; some sea vision of one's sleep, so
quickly has it all happened, and so astonishing what has happened. But
_has_ old Parsons made us man and wife?"

She shook her head.

"That cabin wedding this morning," I continued, "ought to be a fact if
all the rest is a dream. But you must go on wearing that ring, Grace,
and since it is on I shall have to call you Mrs. Barclay. Don't go and
pull it off now. I saw this captain fasten his eye upon it, and we
must be one thing or the other, my sweet."

"Oh, anything to please you, Herbert," she replied, pouting as was her
custom when she was not of my mind; "but try to call me Mrs. Barclay as
seldom as possible."

Thus we chatted as we walked the deck. We had the afterpart of the
little ship entirely to ourselves; the captain came and went, but never
offered to approach. There was a mate as I supposed, a man without a
gold band to his cap, but with buttons to his coat, who replaced the
skipper on the bridge when he quitted it. Owing to deck structures,
funnel-casing and the like, I could see but little of the forward part
of the yacht; but such men as