she had spoken to him on the preceding day. 'I should like ship-life
well enough,' she had said, in answer to some ordinary question, 'if it
led to nothing else.'

'You would not remain here for ever?'

'Certainly, if I could. There is plenty to eat, and a bed to sleep on,
and no one to be afraid of. And though nobody knows me, everybody knows
enough of me not to think that I ought to be taken to a police office
because I have not gloves to my hands.'

'Don't you think it wearisome?' he had asked.

'Everything is wearisome; but here I have a proud feeling of having paid
my way. To have settled in advance for your dinner for six weeks to come
is a magnificent thing. If I get too tired of it I can throw myself
overboard. You can't even do that in London without the police being
down upon you. The only horror to me here is that there will so soon be
an end to it.'

At that time he had not even heard her name, or known whether she were
alone or joined to others. Then he had inquired, and a female
fellow-passenger had informed him that she was a Mrs. Smith,--that she
had seen better days, but had been married to a ne'er-do-well husband,
who had drank himself to death within a year of their marriage, and that
she was now going out to the colony, probably,--so the old lady said who
was the informant,--in search of a second husband. She was to some
extent, the old lady said, in charge of a distant relative, who was
then on board, with a respectable husband and children, and who was very
much ashamed of her poor connection. So much John Caldigate had heard.