lagh and her uncle, and took the Plymouth train.
This was the easier to do, because the wonderful old lady offered to go
herself to the Abbey on a mission of consolation. She promised to send a
telegram to our first port, saying how Barley was, and everything else I
wished to know.

Shelagh was so happy, so excited, that I was glad I'd listened to reason
and kept the tryst. Never had I seen her as pretty as she looked on that
journey to Devon: her eyes blue stars, her cheeks pink roses. But when
the skies began to darken her eyes darkened, too. Had she been a
barometer she could not have responded more sensitively to the storm;
for a storm we had, cats and dogs pelting down on the roof of the train.

"I was sure something horrid would happen!" she whispered. "It was too
good to be true that Roger and I should have a whole, heavenly week
together on board a yacht. Now we shall have to wait till the weather
clears. Or else be sea-sick. I don't know which is worse!"

Roger met us, in torrents of rain and gusts of wind, at Plymouth. But
things were not so black as they looked. He had engaged rooms for
everyone, and a private salon for us all, at the best hotel. We would
stay the night and have a dance, with a band of our own. By the next day
the sea would have calmed down enough to please the worst of sailors,
and we would start. Perhaps we could even get off in the morning.

This prophecy was rather too optimistic, for we didn't get off till
afternoon; but by that time the water was flat as a floor, and one was
tempted to forget there had ever been a storm. We were not to forget it
for long, alas! Brief as it had been, that storm was to leave its
lasting influence upon our fate: Roger Fane's, Shelagh Leigh's, and
mine.

By four-thirty, the day after the downpour, we had all come on board the
lovely _Naiad_, had "settled" into our cabins, and were on deck--the
girls in white serge or linen, the men in flannels--ready for tea.

If it had arrived, and we had been looking into our tea cups instead of
at the seascape, the whole of Roger Fane's and Shelagh's life might have
been different--mine, too, perhaps! But as it was, Shelagh and Roger
were leaning on the rail together, and her gaze was fixed upon the blue
water, because somehow she couldn't meet Roger's just then. What he had
said to her I don't know; but more to avoid giving an answer than
because she was wildly interested, the girl exclaimed: "What can that
dark t