m the Cape at midnight, and left again
at dawn, taking them with it.

CHAPTER XLVI

The departure of the Bellamys left Arthur in very low spirits. His
sensations were similar to those which one can well imagine an ancient
Greek might have experienced who, having sent to consult the Delphic
oracle, had got for his pains a very unsatisfactory reply,
foreshadowing evils but not actually defining them. Lady Bellamy was
in some way connected with the idea of an oracle in his mind. She
looked oracular. Her dark face and inscrutable eyes, the stamp of
power upon her brow, all suggested that she was a mistress of the
black arts. Her words, too, were mysterious, and fraught with bitter
wisdom and a deep knowledge distilled from the poisonous weeds of
life.

Arthur felt with something like a shudder that, if Lady Bellamy
prophesied evil, evil was following hard upon her words. And in
warning him not to place his whole heart's happiness upon one venture,
lest it should meet with shipwreck, he was sure that she was
prophesying with a knowledge of the future denied to ordinary mortals.
How earnestly, too, she had cautioned him against putting absolute
faith in Angela--so earnestly, indeed, that her talk had left a
flavour of distrust in his mind. Yet how could he mistrust Angela?

Nor was he comforted by a remark that fell from Mildred Carr the
afternoon following the departure of the mail. Raising her eyes, she
glanced at his hand.

"What are you looking at?" he said.

"Was not that queer emerald you wore your engagement ring?"

"Yes."

"What have you done with it?"

"I gave it to Lady Bellamy to give to Angela."

"What for?"

"To show her that I am alive and well. I may not write, you know."

"You are very confiding."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. At least, I mean that I don't think that I should care to
hand over my engagement ring so easily. It might be misapplied, you
know."

This view of the matter helped to fill up the cup of Arthur's nervous
anxiety, and he vainly plied Mildred with questions to get her to
elucidate her meaning, and state her causes of suspicion, if she had
any; but she would say nothing more on the subject, which then
dropped, and was not alluded to again between them.

After the Bellamys' departure, the time wore on at Madeira without
bringing about any appreciable change in the situation. But Mildred
saw that their visit had robbed her of any advan