"I am here, Marian; let me see you for God's sake.
"JOHN HOLBROOK."
"If you'll take that to the lady in number 7, I shall be exceedingly obliged," he said to the stewardess, slipping half-a-crown into her willing hand at the same time.
"Yes, sir, this very minute, sir."
John Saltram sat down upon a bench outside the ladies' cabin, in a sort of antechamber between the steward's pantry and store-rooms, strongly perfumed with the odour of grocery, and waited for Marian's coming. He had no shadow of doubt that she would come to him instantly, in defiance of any other guardian or counseller. Whatever lies might have been told her—however she might have been taught to doubt him—he had a perfect faith in the power of his immediate presence. They had but to meet face to face, and all would be well.
Indeed, there was need that things should be well for John Saltram very speedily. He had set nature at defiance so far, acting as if physical weakness were unknown to him. There are periods in a man's life in which nothing seems impossible to him; in which by the mere force of will he triumphs over impossibility. But such conquests are apt to be of the briefest. John Saltram felt that he must very soon break down. The heavily throbbing heart, the aching limbs, the dizzy sight, and parched throat, told him how much this desperate chase had cost him. If he had strength enough to clasp his wife's hand, to give her loving greeting and tell her that he was true, it would be about as much as he could hope to achieve; and then he felt that he would be glad to crawl into any corner of the vessel where he might find rest.
The stewardess came back to him presently, with rather a discomfited air.
"The lady says she is too ill to see any one, sir," she told John Saltram; "but under any circumstances she must decline to see you."
"She said that—my wife told you that?"
"Your wife, sir! Good gracious me, is the lady in number 7 your wife? She came on board with her father, and I understood they were only two in party."