nce, but would appear at dinner-time, no
doubt, if she wasn't ill."

John Saltram tore a blank leaf from his pocket-book, and wrote one hasty
line:

"I am here, Marian; let me see you for God's sake.

"JOHN HOLBROOK."

"If you'll take that to the lady in number 7, I shall be exceedingly
obliged," he said to the stewardess, slipping half-a-crown into her
willing hand at the same time.

"Yes, sir, this very minute, sir."

John Saltram sat down upon a bench outside the ladies' cabin, in a sort
of antechamber between the steward's pantry and store-rooms, strongly
perfumed with the odour of grocery, and waited for Marian's coming. He
had no shadow of doubt that she would come to him instantly, in defiance
of any other guardian or counseller. Whatever lies might have been told
her--however she might have been taught to doubt him--he had a perfect
faith in the power of his immediate presence. They had but to meet face
to face, and all would be well.

Indeed, there was need that things should be well for John Saltram very
speedily. He had set nature at defiance so far, acting as if physical
weakness were unknown to him. There are periods in a man's life in which
nothing seems impossible to him; in which by the mere force of will he
triumphs over impossibility. But such conquests are apt to be of the
briefest. John Saltram felt that he must very soon break down. The
heavily throbbing heart, the aching limbs, the dizzy sight, and parched
throat, told him how much this desperate chase had cost him. If he had
strength enough to clasp his wife's hand, to give her loving greeting and
tell her that he was true, it would be about as much as he could hope to
achieve; and then he felt that he would be glad to crawl into any corner
of the vessel where he might find rest.

The stewardess came back to him presently, with rather a discomfited air.

"The lady says she is too ill to see any one, sir," she told John
Saltram; "but under any circumstances she must decline to see you."

"She said that--my wife told you that?"

"Your wife, sir! Good gracious me, is the lady in number 7 your wife? She
came on board with her father, and I understood they were only two in
party."

"Yes; she came with her father. Her father's treachery has separated her
from me; but a few words would explain everything, if I could only see
her."

He thought it best to tell the woman the truth, strange as it might seem
to her. Her sympathies wer