decks crowded with her living freight of about a thousand human beings,
she steamed slowly out to sea, as though loth to leave the land where she
was born. But presently she seemed to gather up her energies and to grow
conscious of the thousands and thousands of miles of wide tossing water,
which stretched between her and the far-off harbour where her mighty
heart should cease from beating and be for a while at rest. Quicker and
quicker she sped along, and spurned the churning water from her swift
sides. She was running under a full head of steam now, and the coast-line
of England grew faint and low in the faint, low light, till at last it
almost vanished from the gaze of a tall, slim girl, who stood forward,
clinging to the starboard bulwark netting and looking with deep grey eyes
across the waste of waters. Presently Augusta, for it was she, could see
the shore no more, and turned to watch the other passengers and think.
She was sad at heart, poor girl, and felt what she was--a very waif upon
the sea of life. Not that she had much to regret upon the vanished
coast-line. A little grave with a white cross over it--that was all. She
had left no friends to weep for her, none. But even as she thought it, a
recollection rose up in her mind of Eustace Meeson's pleasant, handsome
face, and of his kind words, and with it came a pang as she reflected
that, in all probability, she should never see the one or hear the other
again. Why, she wondered, had he not come to see her again? She should
have liked to bid him "Good-bye," and had half a mind to send him a note
and tell him of her going. This, on second thoughts, however, she had
decided not to do; for one thing, she did not know his address,
and--well, there was an end of it.

Could she by the means of clairvoyance have seen Eustace's face and heard
his words, she would have regretted her decision. For even as that great
vessel plunged on her fierce way right into the heart of the gathering
darkness, he was standing at the door of the lodging-house in the little