and there came no
news of her.

They were ten days which I am not likely to forget. On the very day that
the _Eastern Star_ had cleared from the Thames, a furious easterly gale
had sprung up, and blew on from day to day for the greater part of a
week without the sign of a lull. Such a screaming, raving, long-drawn
storm has never been known on the southern coast. From our hotel
windows the sea view was all banked in haze, with a little rain-swept
half-circle under our very eyes, churned and lashed into one tossing
stretch of foam. So heavy was the wind upon the waves that little sea
could rise, for the crest of each billow was torn shrieking from it, and
lashed broadcast over the bay. Clouds, wind, sea, all were rushing to
the west, and there, looking down at this mad jumble of elements, I
waited on day after day, my sole companion a white, silent woman, with
terror in her eyes, her forehead pressed ever against the window, her
gaze from early morning to the fall of night fixed upon that wall
of grey haze through which the loom of a vessel might come. She said
nothing, but that face of hers was one long wail of fear.

On the fifth day I took counsel with an old seaman. I should have
preferred to have done so alone, but she saw me speak with him, and was
at our side in an instant, with parted lips and a prayer in her eyes.

"Seven days out from London," said he, "and five in the gale. Well, the
Channel's swept clear by this wind. There's three things for it. She may
have popped into port on the French side. That's like enough."

"No, no; he knew we were here. He would have telegraphed."

"Ah, yes, so he would. Well, then, he might have run for it, and if he
did that he won't be very far from Madeira by now. That'll be it, marm,
you may depend."

"Or else? You said there was a third chance."

"Did I, marm? No, only two, I think. I don't think I said anything of a
third. Your ship's out there, depend upon it, away out in the Atlantic,
and you'll hear of it time enough, for the weather is breaking. Now
don't you fret, marm, and wait quiet, and you'll find a real blue
Cornish sky tomorrow."

The old seaman was right in his surmise, for the next day broke calm
and bright, with only a low dwindling cloud in the west to mark the last
trailing wreaths of the storm-wrack. But still there came no word from
the sea, and no sign of the ship. Three more weary days had passed, the
weariest that I have ever spent, when there