, and
waves, and fire, until came down upon it, and upon all the homes which
that one hour desolated, the certain doom. One shudders even at writing
of such things, save that they must of necessity happen, and not rarely.
But for one such tale as that of the _Amazon_, which convulses a whole
kingdom with horror, there must be many unknown chronicles of equal
dread, save that the little vessel sinks unnoticed into its sea grave,
and the destruction carried with it passes not beyond its own immediate
sphere. Such was the case with the Ardente.

When the train neared Southampton it was already bright morning.
Everybody was moving about on the solid, safe, sunshiny earth--nobody
thought of shipwrecks and disasters at sea. Many a one looked lazily
at the glittering Southampton-water; no one dreamed how, far beyond the
curving line of horizon, human beings--husbands and brothers--might be
floating about without food or water, frozen, thirsting, dying or dead,
under the same sunny sky.

Passing the spot where the wide reach of bay opens, Marmaduke quickly
drew down the carriage-blind. He would not for worlds that the poor
Agatha should look at that merry-glancing, cruel sea. She seemed to
notice the movement, and stirred from the corner where she had sat
during all the journey, motionless, save for her perpetually open eyes.

"How light it is! quite morning!"

Marmaduke turned, felt her pulse, and began softly chafing her cold
hand.

"Don't, now," she said piteously. "Don't be kind to me--please don't!
Talk a little. Tell me what you think it best to do first."

The sharp-lined, worn face, not pallid, or without consciousness--some
people, to their misery, never can lose consciousness--mournfully did
worthy Duke regard it! But he did not say a word of sympathy; he knew
she could not bear it. Her physical powers were so tightly strung that
the least soft touch would make them give way altogether.

Mr. Dugdale stated briefly, and as if it had been the most
matter-of-fact thing in the world, how he meant to go to the owners of
the _Ardente_ and get the first tidings of her there; how, if neither
that nor any rumours he could catch in and about the docks, were
satisfactory, he should hire a small steamer and beat up and down
Channel, calling in at all the ports where it was likely boats might
have been picked up.

"They would be, probably, in twenty-four hours or so. If we don't hear
in three days--three days at this tim