‘I am going to be very candid,’ said she. ‘You are not a married woman. When a woman arrives at the age of thirty to two-and-thirty, and perhaps a wee bit more, it is not often, very often let me say, that she is engaged to be married, or, put it more pointedly, that she has a sweetheart. Her life’s romance will in all probability have been lived out.’ She paused to sigh. ‘There may be sweet, impassioned memories, but at the age of thirty or two-and-thirty.... So the past I construct for you amounts to this, Miss C——: you are not a nobleman’s daughter as Sir Frederick will have it, but you are the daughter of a plain country gentleman, who is not very well off. Your father and mother are living. You probably have a brother, who is in the Army or Navy; you see to the housekeeping at home. This, I must tell you, is Mrs. Richards’ idea. You are heart-whole, and though your absence will of course cause consternation and anxiety, yet when your memory comes back to you and you return to your home, you will find all well, and in a few weeks settle down as though nothing had happened.’

I listened with devouring eagerness. Had Mrs. Webber been a witch of diabolic skill and potency, I could not have followed her words with more consuming attention. She had but to look at my face, however, to know that all her ingenious surmises had gone for nothing. She pursued the matter a little further, afterwards talked of her poetry, and presently, taking up the slender volume which she had sent to me by the stewardess, read aloud the ‘Lonely Soul.’ She stayed with me for about half an hour, and then left me.

CHAPTER XIV
AM I A CALTHORPE?

I dined in the saloon that day. Alice Lee remained in her cabin. Her mother told me that the girl had slept for two hours, but that despite her slumber she was languid and without appetite.

‘She is looking forward to your sitting with her this evening,’ said Mrs. Lee.

‘I dread to weary her, and fear that she desires my company merely out of the pity she takes on my loneliness.’

‘No’ exclaimed the little lady with sweetness, but with emphasis, ‘she is sorry for you indeed, but did not I say that she has fallen in love with you? You will not weary her—you will do her good.’

The dinner was a lengthy business, and to me somewhat tedious. Many dishes were brought in by the steward through the doors which conducted to the deck which the emigrants thronged in the daytime, and there was a great deal of unnecessary lingering I thought in the distribution and consumption of these dishes. But life at sea speedily grows very tedious. If the port is a distant one, for a long while it stands at too great a distance in the fancy to be much thought of; and the mind, for immediate relief and recreation, makes all that it possibly can of meal-time.

I wore Mrs. Richards’ short veil, pinned round one of her caps. Sir Frederick Thompson stared much, and twice endeavoured to draw me into conversation, but whenever I spoke I found that the people seated near suspended their talk to catch what fell from my mouth, and their curiosity so greatly embarrassed me that I answered the little City knight in monosyllables only, and presently silenced him, so far as I was concerned. I was thankful to notice, however, that my presence was fast growing familiar to the majority of the passengers. The two Miss Glanvilles, and one or two others, constantly gazed at me; it was, in fact, very easy to see that I was much in the minds of those two handsome girls. Nothing could so perfectly fit their romantic humours as a veiled woman, an ocean mystery, a lonely soul-blinded creature, from the pages of whose volume of life the printed story of the past had been washed out by salt water, leaving a number of blank leaves upon which their imagination might inscribe what tale they would. But the rest of the passengers ate and drank and talked, and scarcely heeded me. Some of the people sitting near the captain spoke of the voyage and the present situation of the ship. I heard Captain Ladmore say that he hoped to be abreast of Madeira next day sometime in the afternoon!