When the invitation was given, the Minnewanda was still four days distant from New York; but the four days, though seeming long, were not long enough to produce the prayed-for inspiration. Mrs. Waldo referred to the journey whenever she saw Annesley, so there was no hope of her scheme being forgotten; and the nearer loomed the new world, the more clearly the girl was forced to see the thing to which a few hasty words had committed her.
She and Knight had staterooms adjoining, with a door between. That was to save appearances, and it was no one's business that the door was never opened. In reality, they might as well have had the length of the ship between their cabins.
Annesley kept to her own quarters as constantly as her jangled nerves would allow; but the sea was provokingly smooth, and she proved to be a good sailor. She felt as if she might become hysterical, and perhaps do something foolish, if she tried the experiment of shutting herself up from morning to night. She paced the deck, therefore, and was dimly grateful to Knight because he seemed always to be in the smoking room when she took her walks.
At meals, however, unless she ate in her stateroom, they could not avoid each other; and again she felt cause for gratitude because Knight had accepted the Waldos' suggestion that they should take a table for four. In spite of the Waldos' unwelcome attentions, their society was preferable—infinitely preferable—to a duet with Knight.
They talked on such occasions; and the sharpest-eared scandal mongers could have guessed at nothing strange from their manner. But, save at these luncheons and these dinners, they scarcely spoke to each other.
Knight took his cue from Annesley. After the night when he had knelt at her feet and begged her forgiveness he had never forced himself upon his wife. He seemed to have a dread of being thought an intruder, and even withdrew his eyes guiltily if the girl caught him looking at her with the old wistful gaze to whose mystery she had now a tragic clue.
Annesley hoped that, before they landed, Knight might make some opportunity to discuss ways and means of getting out of the dilemma created by the Waldos. But he never attempted to begin a conversation with her, and she put off the evil moment from day to day, telling herself that there was time yet, and he had probably solved the problem—he, who was a specialist in solving problems.
Loving the man no longer, her heart seeming to die anew whenever she even thought of him, there remained still a ghost of her old trust; an almost resentful confidence that he who was so clever, so hideously clever, would be capable of overcoming any difficulty.
"I told him that I'd go with him on the ship, and that then we must part," she assured herself, lying awake at night, wondering feverishly what was to happen in New York. "He said we'd see about all that later, but he must know by the way I act that I haven't changed my mind. He will have to get me out of the trouble about the train."
The girl, in mapping the future, had thought of herself as being a governess for American children. She did not know many things which governesses ought to know, but if the children were small enough, she did not see why she mightn't do very well.