"Did you clear away the mess from Miss Acton's berth?" asked Mr Lawrence.
"Yes, sir."
"The lady, I presume, ate nothing?"
"I couldn't see that she had, your honour."
"When you have cleared this table, go forward and tell the cook to cut a plate of the most delicate beef and chicken sandwiches he can contrive. Get a bottle of red wine and a glass, and be ready to carry the refreshments to the lady when I've left her."
He approached Miss Acton's door. Lucy was seated on a locker under a window, three of which embellished the stern of the Minorca. The ocean as the ship lightly depressed her stern, was visible through this window, a blue field decked with flowers of foam that rose and sank. The large glazed space filled the cabin with light, which trembled with the pulse of the white wake streaming fan-wise, and with the shivering of the sunlight into splinters of diamond brilliance by the fretful motions of the breeze-brushed waters.
Miss Lucy Acton sat with her eyes veiled by downcast lids fixed in a stare as lifeless as the dead upon her hands, which lay clasped in her lap. So motionless was she, you would have said she slept. Much of the lovely bloom that always gave to her lineaments a choice sweetness was absent, but not the less did as much of her face as was visible express its refined and delicate beauty.
When Mr Lawrence entered she did not raise her eyes, nor whilst he stood looking at her did she discover by any sort of movement the least knowledge of his presence.
"Lucy!" he said, speaking the word in the wooing voice of love.