perfectly unaware of guilt. And it was this innocence
that, after the first anger, filled poor Althea with fear. What did it
bode for the future? Meanwhile there was the humiliating fact to face
that she, the cherished and appreciated Althea, who had never returned
to America without at least three devoted friends to welcome her, was to
land on the dismal Liverpool docks and find no lover to greet her there.
What would Mrs. Peel and Sally Arlington think when they saw her so
bereft? It was the realisation of what they would think, the memory of
the American wonder at the Englishman's traditional indifference to what
the American woman considered her due in careful chivalry, that roused
her pride to the necessity of self-preservation. Mrs. Peel and Sally, at
all events, should not imagine her to be either angry or surprised. She
would show them the untroubled matter-of-fact of the English wife. And
she succeeded admirably in this. When Miss Arlington, sitting up and
dressed at last, said, in Mrs. Peel's cabin, where, leaning on Althea's
arm, she had feebly crept to tea, 'And what fun, Althea, to think that
we shall see him to-morrow morning,' Althea opened candidly surprised
eyes: 'See him? Who, dear?'

'Why, Mr. Digby, of course. Who else could be him?' said Miss Arlington.

'But he isn't coming to Liverpool,' said Althea blandly.

'Not coming to meet you?' Only tact controlled the amazement in Miss
Arlington's question.

'Didn't you know? Gerald is a very busy man; he has had a long-standing
engagement for this week, and besides I shouldn't have liked him to
come. I'd far rather meet comfortably in London, where I shall see him
the first thing on Saturday. And then you'll see him too.'

She only wished that she could really feel, what she showed them--such
calm, such reasonableness, and such detachment.

It was with a gloomy eye that she surveyed the Liverpool docks in the
bleak dawn next morning, seated in her chair, Amelie beside her, a
competent Atlas, bearing a complicated assortment of bags, rugs, and
wraps. No, she had nothing to hope from these inhospitable shores; no
welcoming eyes were there to greet hers. It was difficult not to cry as
she watched the ugly docks draw near and saw the rows of ugly human
faces upturned upon it--peculiarly ugly in colour the human face at this
hour of the morning. Then, suddenly, Amelie made a little exclamation
and observed in dispassionate yet approving tones, 'Tiens; et