Mrs. Verschoyle, after a few minutes’ suspense, voted for independent action. She had, indeed, broached a project of creeping up to the men at the wheel and imploring them to ‘turn faster,’ when there came a general stir among the crew, followed by a rattling sound which most of the party had sufficient sea-going experience to recognise. The Princess was about to cast her anchor.
Just at this juncture appeared Lord Rex, fresh from hurried consultations with Ozanne and the boatswain. A suspicious unconcern was on Lord Rex Basire’s face, a note of forced cheerfulness in his tone.
‘Lucky we have got so near home, is it not, Mrs. Verschoyle? We are about two miles from shore, they say,—Ozanne, of course, knows every yard of water,—just within or without the Grunes, whatever the Grunes may mean. We shall only have to ride half an hour or so at anchor—awfully jolly sensation, I can tell you, with a south-west swell. And then, as the mist rises, we shall steam clean into Petersport.’
But this show of jauntiness misled no one. The De Carterets, Cassandra Tighe, Marjorie Bartrand, all understood their position better than did Lord Rex. And it was a position of the utmost gravity. The Princess was lying in dense fog, surrounded by shoals, across the very highway of the Channel night steamers. For an old and wary seaman like Ozanne to have been forced to anchor at such a strait did but render the fact of his helplessness more pointed.
‘What does it all mean? Are we not close to port, madam?’
The ladies were pressing together in groups. Dinah whispered the question across Cassandra Tighe’s shoulder.
‘Close to port—of one kind or another,’ answered Cassandra, vaguely unorthodox to the last. ‘As long as nothing runs into us we may do well enough. And dawn is at hand. At sunrise the fog may lift. Your husband ought to be here with you,’ she added, misinterpreting a certain vibration of Dinah’s voice.
‘I thank God that he is not! Alone, there is nothing to be frightened about. I thank God that Gaston is safe—warmly housed, away in Alderney!’
And, in truth, a reasonless, half-pleasurable excitement, the reaction after so much dull pain, had arisen in Dinah’s heart.