Chapter XXXI.
A FATAL JOURNEY.
Thither, full fraught with mischievous revenge,
Accursed and in a cursed hour, she hies.
—Milton.
On that Wednesday morning the fine steamer "Pocahontas" lay at her wharf receiving freight and passengers for Washington and Alexandria.
Her decks were crowded with men, women and children, all either going on the voyage or "seeing off" departing friends and acquaintances.
Among the passengers on the forward deck stood a slight, elegant, graceful woman, clothed in widow's weeds and deeply veiled.
This was, of course, Mary Grey, bound upon her baleful errand.
She had spent the intervening Tuesday with her infatuated instrument, Craven Kyte. But when he pleaded to attend her to the boat and see her off she forbid his doing so on pain of an eternal separation from her.