CHAPTER VII.


The two days passed, and the Thursday, and the Friday's parting,
harder for Bessie, as it seemed, than she had thought for. It was hard
to raise her dear little head from my shoulder when the last moment
came, and to rush down stairs to the cab, whose shivering horse and
implacable driver seemed no bad emblem of destiny on that raw October
morning.

I was glad of the lowering sky as I stepped up the gangway to the
ship's deck. "What might have been" went down the cabin stairs with
me; and as I threw my wraps and knapsack into the double state-room I
had chosen I felt like a widower.

It was wonderful to me then, as I sat down on the side of the berth
and looked around me, how the last two weeks had filled all the future
with dreams. "I must have a genius for castle-building," I laughed.
"Well, the reality is cold and empty enough. I'll go up on deck."

On deck, among the piles of luggage, were various metal-covered trunks
marked M----. I remember now watching them as they were stowed away.

But it was with a curious shock, an hour after we had left the dock,
that a turn in my solitary walk on deck brought me face to face with
Fanny Meyrick.