Jean was buried in thought, and Jem had ceased to expect an answer, when she said—
"I shall have to come and work there too—if—You would let me, would you not? Unless Evelyn and I came and lived together! It has been her dream for years."
"Mrs. Villiers!"
"She said so the other day! . . . Oh, what a wave!"
"Hold fast! . . . Yes—you were saying—"
"She has often talked so—especially of late. Evelyn gets so tired of her present life. She would like to give it all up, and take to East-End work as a vocation . . . I don't think the wish is only restlessness. Sometimes she talks as it were—but that is because she is so honest—so afraid of laying claim to higher motives than she has. Evelyn does think and feel very deeply—and her religion is always so true—though she talks very little. I am sure the wish is a real wish; not mere disgust with Dutton and the Park . . . Isn't it strange that Cyril should have written so often lately of London work of that kind? He says he can't settle down at his age to a do nothing existence at the Brow. He would like to spend part of the year in Town, and look into all sorts of questions, and help a little to improve things at the East-End. But no use talking," murmured Jean. "When perhaps—"
Jem hardly heard the last few words. That which she said about Evelyn stirred him strongly, seeming to clothe the condition of things with a new vesture of possibilities.
Four o'clock in the afternoon, and still the hapless passengers were at sea, exposed to the fury of wind and wave. Hour after hour had crept by; and the "Bristol," with her damaged wheel and silent engines, drifted slowly, log-like, across the Channel, and towards the French coast.
One friendly steamer, the "Achilles," had been signalled in the course of the morning, and had come to their aid. With great delay and difficulty, and no small peril of a collision, she had been manœuvred into a position near enough alongside to take on board the tow-rope of the "Bristol." For a while hopes rose high; but in so heavy a sea, the strain proved to be too great.
After two hours, the powerful hawser snapped as if made of tinder; and to pick it up again was not possible. The wind had by this time fallen to some extent; but the seas still chased one another in mountainous grey ridges with wearisome monotony.