Very few, if any, persons go below into the stuffy little cabins, and doubting souls provide themselves with ominous white bowls at the outset of the voyage, and should illness come upon them they proceed to make themselves comfortable upon the deck, or moan, or swear, according to the sex of the sufferer, totally unmindful and oblivious of lookers on.
In a corner by herself, at one side of the boat, her thick green vail over her face shrouding a bowl that filled her lap, sat Artress, Lady Wynde’s gray companion, in a condition of abject misery. She had no thought of any one but herself in that crisis of her physical career, and gave no heed to her young charge, the one great desire of her soul being to find herself once more upon solid land.
At the opposite side of the boat, leaning lightly upon the rail, and looking back with wistful, longing eyes upon the fading blue of the French shores, stood a young girl who was strangely lovely. She was slender and graceful as a swaying reed, and her lithe, light figure carried itself with a slight hauteur that was inexpressibly charming. Her high-bred manner, her evident gentleness and sweetness, betrayed thorough culture of heart and mind. Her face was a rare poem. The features were slightly irregular, and even in repose, with a grave shadow upon her fair brows, her countenance had a bright, piquant witchery. Her complexion was very pure and fair, her lips a vivid scarlet, and under her broad forehead a pair of wondrous red-brown eyes sparkled and glowed with strange brilliancy. Her hair, very abundant, and of a reddish-brown tint as rare as beautiful, was gathered into braids at the back of her small, noble head.
She was dressed in a traveling suit of black cashmere, and wore a black hat surmounted with a scarlet wing.
She was Neva Wynde, the owner of Hawkhurst, one of the greatest heiresses in England, and now the object of the sinister machinations of her handsome step-mother and Craven Black.
Her school-days were over, and she was on her way to a home she had not visited for years, and to a guardian whom she did not know, and who was secretly her enemy. She had emerged from the pleasant security of the school-room into a region of perils. A premonition of the dangers before her seemed almost to come upon her now, and into her glowing eyes crept a look of sorrowful yearning, and of passionate protest against the friendlessness of her lot.
A few feet distant from her, also leaning upon the railing, stood a young man, whose gaze, ostensibly fixed upon the French coast, now and then rested upon the girl’s speaking face with an expression of keen admiration and interest. He thought in his own soul that he had never seen a being so fresh, so dainty, so pure, so rarely beautiful. She seemed utterly alone. No one inquired how she felt, nor offered her a seat, nor looked after her, and her young admirer wondered if she were all alone in the world, as she seemed.
He was speculating upon the subject when a sudden lurch of the boat upon the short, chopping Channel waves, caused Neva to involuntarily loosen her hold upon the railing, and pitched her abruptly along the deck toward him. He sprang forward and caught her in his arms. She recovered her equilibrium upon the instant, and again grasped the railing, blushing, confused, and murmuring her thanks for his civility.
“The Channel is rough to-day,” remarked the young gentleman. “Shall I not find you a seat?”
“Thank you, no,” returned Neva, in her sweet, low, cultured voice. “I prefer standing.”