The following day was the longest in Maseden’s experience. Monotony, in itself, is wearying; when, to a dull routine of meals and occasional talk with men of an inferior type is added the positive discomfort of confinement in the most exposed and cramped part of a ship during a stiff gale, monotony becomes akin to torture.
At last, however, night fell. There was no improvement in the weather, which, if anything, grew worse; but a change in the ship’s course, or a shifting of the wind—no one to whom Maseden might speak could give him any reliable data on the point—brought the Southern Cross on a more even keel.
Here, at least, was some slight compensation for the leaden-footed hours of waiting. Nina Gray might be a good sailor, but it was hardly reasonable to expect that she would keep her tryst when the big steamer was trying alternately to stand on end or roll bodily over to port.
About nine o’clock Maseden made out a shrouded figure in the position where his “sister-in-law” had stood the previous night. He hastened from the shelter of the forecastle, and was promptly drenched from head to foot by a shower of spray. He was half-way up the ladder when a voice reached him.
“Please go back,” it said. “I’ll come to the gangway on the starboard side.”
He regained the deck, made for the right-hand gangway, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing the girl walking swiftly along the dimly-lighted corridor.
He hardly knew how to greet her. To bid her “Good evening,” or murmur some platitude about her goodness in keeping the appointment in such vile weather, would have sounded banal.
The lady, however, when they came face to face, settled all doubts on the question of etiquette by saying breathlessly:
“I have had a long talk with my sister, Mr. Maseden, and she bids me tell you that she cannot meet you herself. You were so generous, so kind to her, at a moment when your thoughts might well have been centered in your own terrible fate, that she cannot bear the ordeal of asking you the last favor of forgetting her.
“Of course, every facility will be given for the dissolution of the marriage. I have written here the address of a firm of lawyers in Philadelphia who will act with your legal representatives when the matter comes before the courts. For your own purposes, I understand, you wish to remain unknown while on board this ship. We have arranged to travel to New York by the first American liner sailing from Buenos Ayres after our arrival. Perhaps you will be good enough to choose another vessel, or, if your affairs are urgent, we would wait for a later one. Can you let me know your wishes now in that matter?”