congenially occupied in this pleasant web
of thought, and she sat there in her big fur cloak--for the wind of
their motion made the air feel cold--with eyes that looked outwards, yet
brooded inwardly, April-eyes, that were turned towards the summer that
was coming. And all the past was poured into that, even as the squalls
and tempests of winter are transmuted into and feed the luxuriance of
June-time. The sorrow and the pain that were past had become herself;
they were over, but their passage had left her more patient, more
tolerant, more loving.

The deck was nearly empty, and but few of the more valiant walked up and
down the sheltered swaying boards; but these, as often as they passed,
looked again at her. Her mouth and chin were half lost and buried in the
furry collar of her cloak, but above them was that fine, straight nose,
just a little tip-tilted, the great brown eyes, and black hair growing
low on the brow. Had her mouth been visible, a man would have said,
"This is a woman," but without that he would very likely have said,
"This is a girl," so young and so full of expectancy was her face. Yet
had he looked twice at eyes and smooth, flushed cheeks alone, he would
have said, "This is a woman," for though the joy of life beamed so
freshly in her eyes, behind that there lurked something of its
transmuted sorrows. Her expectancy was not that of ignorance; she knew,
and still looked forward.

Under the lee of the English shore the sea abated, and she came on to
the top deck from which they would disembark, and looked eagerly along
the pier, telling herself that her expectations that she would see a
certain figure there were preposterous, and yet cherishing them with a
secret conviction. And then she knew that they were not preposterous at
all; that it could not have been otherwise. Of course he had come down
to Dover to meet her, and as she left the boat she was taken into his
charge at once.

"Oh, Victor, how nice of you," she said. "I didn't expect you would come
all the way down here a bit."

He held her hand, "but as long as all may, or so very little longer."
But there was much that passed between them in that "very little
longer."

"Nor did I expect to come," he said. "I only came."

She smiled at him.

"Ah, that's so like you," she said.

They waited with talk of commonplaces as to her journey and the crossing
till Jeannie's maid came off the boat with her attendant baggage-bearer,
and then went