rits, and
your hand feels feverish. Pining for the blue water, captain--pining for
the blue water!" With that expression of opinion, the doctor cheerfully
went out.

In an hour the letter arrived. Kirke took it from the landlady
reluctantly, and almost roughly, without looking at it. Having
ascertained that Magdalen was still engaged at her toilet, and having
explained to the landlady the necessity of remaining within call, he
went downstairs immediately, and put the letter on the table in the
front room. Magdalen heard the sound of the familiar step on the floor.
"I shall soon be ready," she called to him, through the door.

He made no reply; he took his hat and went out. After a momentary
hesitation, he turned his face eastward, and called on the ship-owners
who employed him, at their office in Cornhill.

CHAPTER III.

MAGDALEN'S first glance round the empty room showed her the letter on
the table. The address, as the doctor had predicted, broke the news the
moment she looked at it.

Not a word escaped her. She sat down by the table, pale and silent, with
the letter in her lap. Twice she attempted to open it, and twice she put
it back again. The bygone time was not alone in her mind as she looked
at her sister's handwriting: the fear of Kirke was there with it. "My
past life!" she thought. "What will he think of me when he knows my past
life?"

She made another effort, and broke the seal. A second letter dropped out
of the inclosure, addressed to her in a handwriting with which she was
not familiar. She put the second letter aside and read the lines which
Norah had written:

"Ventnor, Isle of Wight, August 24th.

"MY DEAREST MAGDALEN--When you read this letter, try to think we have
only been parted since yesterday; and dismiss from your mind (as I have
dismissed from mine) the past and all that belongs to it.

"I am strictly forbidden to agitate you, or to weary you by writing
a long letter. Is it wrong to tell you that I am the happiest woman
living? I hope not, for I can't keep the secret to myself.

"My darling, prepare yourself for the greatest surprise I have ever
caused you. I am married. It is only a week to-day since I parted with
my old name--it is only a week since I have been the happy wife of
George Bartram, of St. Crux.

"There were difficulties at first in the way of our marriage, some of
them, I am afraid, of my making. Happily for me, my husband knew from
the beginning that I reall