For answer Meta burst into tears.
Had she dared she would have told her ladyship everything now; for Meta could not get over the idea that she was playing a double part, and night and day the thought troubled and vexed her. But dare she tell her? No, she feared her pride too much.
She consoled herself by remembering her vow, that she would never, never marry Claude without his mother’s consent—not unless she joined her hands and blessed them.
But then Claude—might he not even now be lying cold in death? No wonder that Meta wept.
The Alba sailed on and on, or steamed on and on, encountering all the dangers usual to a passage out in these seas.
But every danger was bravely faced by the ladies, every trial was cheerfully met, and but served to bind their hearts closer together in the bonds of friendship.
Then one day, towards the latter end of April, the sun went down in a yellow haze, through which he glared red and angrily. There was ice about everywhere, bergs of every conceivable shape and size, some so big that the Alba took long minutes to steam past them, others with pinnacled top so tall that they caught the sun’s rays long after he had dipped down behind the western waves. There was a look of such unwonted anxiety on good Captain Jahnsen’s face that Meta must go and embrace him, and ask him if there was any danger.
“A little, dear,” he replied. “You’re a sailor’s daughter, you know, so comfort poor Lady Alwyn if it comes on to blow much, and keep up her heart.”
Meta promised she would.
The glass got suddenly hollow at top, and began to sink at an aggravatingly rapid rate.