aves, ride over them, on--on--to the
mouth of the bay. And now for the first time she was out on the open
sea.

It was one of those gloomy winter days when the whole ocean looks
sullen--heavy with brooding storms. No blue foamy sweeps, no lovely
sea-green calms; nothing but leaden-coloured hills of water, swelling
and sinking, with black valleys between. Agatha remembered a story she
had read or heard in her childish days, of some wrecked sailor lad,
doomed to death by his mates because the boat was too full for safety,
who asked leave to sit on the gunwale until after the curl of the wave,
and then quietly dropped off into the smooth hollow below.

It was horrible! She could not look at the sea--it made her mad. She
could only look skywards, and try to find a break in the dun clouds; or
else over to the horizon, to see something--ever so faint and small a
something--breaking the line of water and sky.

The men on board apparently knew Mr. Dugdale, and he them. They worked
with a respectful solemnity, as if aware of their sad errand. The boat
was a little steam-tug, and she cut her way over the heavy seas like
a bird. Two men, and Marmaduke, kept watch constantly with the glass,
shorewards and seawards. Sometimes they went so far out that the hazy
coast-line almost vanished, and then again they ran in-shore under the
gigantic cliffs that lock the south of England coast.

Hour after hour, the poor wife remained on deck, sometimes walking about
restlessly, sometimes lying wrapped in sails and rugs, her face turned
seaward in a dumb hopelessness that was more piteous than any moans. The
seamen, if they happened to come near, looked at her with a sort of awe,
mingled with that compassionate gentleness which sailors almost always
show towards women. More than once, great rough hands brought her
food, or put to use half-a-dozen clever nautical contrivances for the
sheltering of "the poor lady."

Late at night she went down below; by daybreak she was on deck again.
She found Mr. Dugdale in his old place by the compass and the telescope.
He had slept by snatches where he sat, never giving up his watch for a
single hour.

"E--h!" he said, when she came and touched him. "I was dreaming of the
Missus and the little ones at home!"

"Do you want to go home?"

"No--no!--not while there's a hope. Keep heart, my child!"

But they looked at each other's faces in the dawn, and saw how pale and
disconsolate both were. And still