ld be rough!" aroused her. Glad to be alone, and tired enough now,
she sought the ladies' cabin, and slept through the crossing, till the
voice of the old stewardess awakened her: "You've had a nice sleep.
We're alongside, miss." Ah! if she were but THAT now! She had been
dreaming that she was sitting in a flowery field, and Lennan had drawn
her up by the hands, with the words: "We're here, my darling!"

On deck, the Colonel, laden with bags, was looking back for her, and
trying to keep a space between him and his wife. He signalled with his
chin. Threading her way towards him, she happened to look up. By the
rails of the pier above she saw her husband. He was leaning there,
looking intently down; his tall broad figure made the people on each side
of him seem insignificant. The clean-shaved, square-cut face, with those
almost epileptic, forceful eyes, had a stillness and intensity beside
which the neighbouring faces seemed to disappear. She saw him very
clearly, even noting the touch of silver in his dark hair, on each side
under his straw hat; noting that he seemed too massive for his neat blue
suit. His face relaxed; he made a little movement of one hand. Suddenly
it shot through her: Suppose Mark had travelled with them, as he had
wished to do? For ever and ever now, that dark massive creature, smiling
down at her, was her enemy; from whom she must guard and keep herself if
she could; keep, at all events, each one of her real thoughts and hopes!
She could have writhed, and cried out; instead, she tightened her grip on
the handle of her bag, and smiled. Though so skilled in knowledge of his
moods, she felt, in his greeting, his fierce grip of her shoulders, the
smouldering of some feeling the nature of which she could not quite
fathom. His voice had a grim sincerity: "Glad you're back--thought you
were never coming!" Resigned to his charge, a feeling of sheer physical
faintness so beset her that she could hardly reach the compartment he had
reserved. It seemed to her that, for all her foreboding, she had not
till this moment had the smallest inkling of what was now before her; and
at his muttered: "Must we have the old fossils in?" she looked back to
assure herself that her Uncle and Aunt were following. To avoid having
to talk, she feigned to have travelled badly, leaning back with closed
eyes, in her corner. If only she could open them and see, not this
square-jawed face with its intent gaze of posse