"So sorry you are going, dear. Of course you will write? I have your address—15, Upper Cream Street. It has all been very sad for you, but life is uncertain;" then—as a bonne bouche reserved for the last, a kind of stimulant for the voyage—she added impressively, "My sister, Lady Grubb, will call on you in London—and now, really, good-bye." One more final whisper yet in her ear, positively the last word, "Quentin has treated you disgracefully."
A pressure of the hand and she was gone.
The steamer's paddles began to churn, to grind the water, the boats rowed on alongside, their occupants waving handkerchiefs, till the Scotia gradually forged ahead and left them all behind.
Helen leant over the bulwarks, watching them and waving to the last. How much she liked them all, how good they had been to her! As they gradually fell far behind, even the final view of Mrs. Creery's broad back and mushroom topee caused her a pang of unexpected regret.
The surrounding hills, woods, and water looked lovelier than she had ever seen them, as if they were saying, "How can you bid us good-bye? Why do you leave us?"
She gazed with straining vision towards the graveyard on the hill, now fading so fast from eyes that would never see it more. Presently Mount Harriet became sensibly diminished, then Ross itself dwindled to a mere shadowy speck; Helen stood alone at the taffrail, taking an eternal farewell of these sunny islands, which had once been to her as an earthly paradise, where the happiest hours of her life had been spent, and the darkest—where she had first made acquaintance with love and death and grief! The little-known Andamans were gradually fading—fading—fading. As she stood with her eyes earnestly fixed upon the last faint blue outline, they were gone, merged in the horizon, and lost to sight. She would never more behold them, save in her dreams!
With this thought painfully before her mind she turned slowly away, and went below to her own cabin, and shutting fast the door, she threw herself down on her berth and wept bitterly.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE STEERAGE PASSENGER.
"Pray you sit by us, and tell's a tale."