e serene at
the moment of our fall from the precipice of Time: shall this alone,
amidst all that makes us what we are, be chosen out to see corruption,
to be cast off and forgotten in the grave? Never! There, by the
workings of a Providence we cannot understand, that mighty germ awaits
fruition. There, too, shall we know the wherefore of our sorrow at
which, sad-eyed, we now so often wonder: there shall we kiss the rod
that smote us, and learn the glorious uses and pluck the glowing
fruits of an affliction, that on earth filled us with such sick
longing, and such an aching pain.

Let the long-suffering reader forgive these pages of speculative
writing, for the subject is a tempting one, and full of interest for
us mortals. Indeed, it may chance that, if he or she is more than
five-and-twenty, these lines may even have been read without
impatience, for there are many who have the memory of a lost Angela
hidden away somewhere in the records of their past, and who are fain,
in the breathing spaces of their lives, to dream that they will find
her wandering in that wide Eternity where "all human barriers fall,
all human relations end, and love ceases to be a crime."

CHAPTER XXXIII

The morning after the vessel left Dartmouth brought with it lovely
weather, brisk and clear, with a fresh breeze that just topped the
glittering swell with white. There was, however, a considerable roll
on the ship, and those poor wretches, who for their sins are given to
sea-sickness, were not yet happy. Presently Arthur observed the pretty
black-eyed girl--poor thing, she did not look very pretty now--creep
on to the deck and attempt to walk about, an effort which promptly
resulted in a fall into the scuppers. He picked her up, and asked if
she would not like to sit down, but she faintly declined, saying that
she did not mind falling so long as she could walk a little--she did
not feel so sick when she walked. Under these circumstances he could
hardly do less than help her, which he did in the only way at all
practicable with one so weak, namely, by walking her about on his arm.

In the midst of his interesting peregrinations he observed Mrs. Carr
gazing out of her deck cabin window, looking, he thought, pale, but
sweetly pretty, and rather cross. When that lady saw that she was
observed, she pulled the curtain with a jerk and vanished. Shortly
after this Arthur's companion vanished too, circumstances over wh