"When next you invite a certain friend of yours to supply you with frocks and hats, take care that it is not within hearing of one who is well acquainted with Lord C——'s limited generosity to the reigning fancy of the hour. Better fix your hopes upon the older and more solvent of your swains. It will pay well, and be a less dangerous game for you."
As the insult burned upon the girl's understanding, it seemed to her that the world must stop revolving then and there. It was her first experience of the poison of anonymous correspondence, that, in an instant, ran through her veins, paralyzing her with shame and humiliation. How could she face daylight and the society of honest folk, with a stain of such suspicion upon her? What had she brought upon her honored father, upon her trustful lover, by exposing herself to such an imputation? Would Helen Carstairs ever speak to her again, if she knew what had been thought and said of Posey Winstanley?
She turned out the light, and cast herself upon her berth. Now, over the tumult of her self-flagellations, arose the actual sound of a mighty wind arising to bear down upon the ship. It had come up suddenly, their room was upon the weather-side, and, in her already nervous state, the sounds seemed the shrieking of all the demons chained in hell. While the spinster, now avenged, snored peacefully through the tumult of elements outside, Posey lay wide-eyed, trembling, imagining all horrors of the sea, and praying for the comfort of Mrs. Gasher's friendly voice.
"If we are to be lost," passed through her mind, despairingly, "everything will be forgotten that has been said of me, and it is better so." She longed to go to her father, but dared not, considering his distance from her, and the unpleasant fact that he shared a stateroom with two other men. The silence of the ship seemed as unnatural as the failure of increase in its motion. The curtain drawn over their doorway swayed ever so slightly back and forth, there was no creaking of timbers or crash of crockery, or rolling of small objects upon the floor. A glass of water left on the washhand-stand was not disturbed in its equilibrium. Surely this was strange, weird, unnatural, with such a tempest raging on the sea!
Now Posey decided that, on the whole, she did not wish to die. Driven by panic, she arose, still dressed as she had been for the supper, and stole out down the long, empty passage-ways upon a tour of investigation, to encounter no living soul save a sleepy night-steward standing under a light, to con an ancient newspaper.
The man looked up sleepily as the unwonted apparition drew near him. He recognized the beauty, and from her pallor and agitation decided she must be ill.
"Anything I can do for you, miss?" he asked politely.
"Oh! no. Nothing whatever," answered Posey hurriedly. "I was only not sleeping well, and feeling a little nervous in the storm."
"Storm, miss?" queried the steward abstractedly, swallowing a yawn.
"Yes, a fearful one. On our side, it blows like mad. Surely you must hear it?"