Repeatedly in the slow hours of that boisterous night and early morning, Jem wished that they had not come. The trip bid fair to outlast considerably its orthodox length of four hours. Dawn was beginning to break, and they were still in mid-Channel, only about half-way over. The sea was so heavy, that it had been early found needful, for safety's sake, to slow down the engines; and advance was tardy. A large proportion of the passengers were too entirely prostrated by sea-sickness to pay close heed to the flight of time: but Jem and Jean were first-rate sailors.
Jem retired only for an hour or two; then he came once more on deck, preferring to keep watch. It was no easy matter to maintain footing on a floor which each instant assumed some new slope, trying almost every conceivable position except the horizontal. He soon ensconced himself in the most sheltered spot he could find, not far from the companion-hatch, there to study at leisure the conflict of forces.
Faint gleams of light stole over the waste of watery hills—a grey landscape of long broken ranges, sliding swiftly one after another in a never-ending progression from the west-north-west. Snow-tipped summits reared themselves, mountain-like, the dark crests being rent into white foam, and torn away by the gale. It was a scene never for two instants the same, yet ever repeating itself, as vast bluffs of water rolled past and under—sometimes partly over—the straining vessel. Each time a sea was shipped, there was, with the shock of concussion, a rush of the broken wave.
Jem escaped, in his corner, most of the flow, but he came in for drenching showers of spray; and rug and macintosh failed to keep him dry. Still he sat on: and but for certain saddening circumstances, he would have enjoyed the hurly-burly of excited elements.
He was grieved both for Evelyn and Jean: yet no doubt it was Evelyn mainly who filled his thoughts. Matters in that direction had of late severely tried Jem's fortitude. To see Evelyn in trouble, and not do his utmost to comfort her, was hard of endurance. It was the old pain of years gone by, revived and intensified. If Evelyn were happy, he could bear bravely for himself the long suffering of life apart from her; but if she were sad, he was wretched. Perhaps not many men love so unselfishly.
All the hours of this stormy night, she was never out of his mind. He had gone through a spell of fierce battling, during many months past, unknown to those with whom he lived; and things were nearing a climax. Jem had felt lately that the fight was too sore for him. Health and spirit threatened to break down beneath it. A question as to his future had arisen in the shape of an offered living—a large London Parish, among the very poor, yet not so far East that he might not, perhaps, venture to have his mother with him, for at least part of the year. The income, though less than that of Dutton, would still enable him to keep her in comfort.
For three days he had carried the letter about, unable to arrive at any decision. Now, he determinately faced the matter, alone in semi-darkness, on the heaving deck, with a world of troubled waters around.
In the light of threatened separation, he found out how he had grown to depend on occasional meetings with Evelyn—a glimpse here; a word or smile there—to carry him on. He discovered how desolate life would be without her, beyond reach of her sweet face and voice. A life not worth living, he could almost have said—if any good and right feeling man might dare to say such words, in the blaze of his responsibilities, and of the work given him to do.
"The more need for me to leave Dutton! It is making me useless," was what Jem did say. Few would have endorsed the assertion, yet it expressed a positive danger.
He never had sought to win her: so much Jem could aver. He had resolutely restrained himself; had treated her with mere grave kindness and courtesy; nay, he had even forced a certain sternness, a certain coldness, to cover his burning devotion. The love of a strong man of thirty-five, which has slowly grown for years, in the face of hopeless obstacles, is no light thing. Jem was not like Cyril. He could never hesitate as to whom he loved. Once and again, with all the force of his vigorous Trevelyan nature, he had stamped his passion under foot, and had for a while counted it slain; but always, like a phoenix from the ashes, it had sprung up anew: and at last, he had ceased to think of destroying a thing of such vitality. So far he had been able to hold it in leash. Now, nothing remained but to flee.