chair, but had not the power to
do so. The shock had been too great, and he sank back half fainting,
whispering as he did so:

"Tell me everything--now--at once. It will not harm me; joy seldom
kills. Tell me the whole."

So she told him all she knew, and the particulars of her finding Bessie
among the steerage passengers, and having her removed to her room.

"Yes, I see--I understand how the mistake occurred." Grey said. "But why
did not Neil tell me he had been to see her off?"

"He was probably ashamed to let you know that she was in the steerage.
He hoped you would not find her," Miss Grey replied; and Grey exclaimed:

"The coward! If it were not wrong, I should have him;" while a fierce
pang shot through his heart that Bessie was bound to Neil, and that,
though living, she was no nearer to him than if she were dead and in
that grave by which he had so lately stood.

Still it would be something to see her again, to hear her voice, to look
into her eyes, and have her all to himself for the remainder of the
voyage, which he now wished had just commenced.

"Thank God she lives, even though she does not live for me," he said to
himself; and then, at his aunt's suggestion, he tried to control his
nerves and bring himself into a quieter, calmer condition before going
down to see her.

It was nearly an hour before he felt himself strong enough to do it, and
when at last he reached the narrow passage, and knew there was but a
step between him and Bessie, he trembled so that his aunt was obliged to
support him as he steadied himself against the door of the state-room.
Glancing in for an instant, Miss Grey put her finger upon her lip,
saying to him:

"She is asleep; sit quietly down till she wakens."

There was a buzzing in Grey's ears and a blur before his eyes, so that
he did not at once see distinctly the face which lay upon the pillow
resting on one hand, with the bright hair clinging about the neck and
brow. Bessie had fallen asleep while waiting for him, and there was a
smile upon her lips and a flush upon her cheek, which made her more
like the Bessie he knew at Stoneleigh than like the white-faced girl he
had left in Rome, and whom he had never thought to see again.

"It is Bessie and she is alive," he said, under his breath, and bending
over her he softly kissed her forehead saying as he did so, "My darling!
just for the moment _mine_, if Neil's by and by."

For an instant Bessie moved uneasily, then sl