The stay of the party in New York was short. Norton was busy with trade that could not wait. He stole a part of a day, stuffed the pocketbooks of the ladies with gold, showed them around and then at last they looked from the deck of a "greyhound" and saw the slopes of Staten island and the highlands sink low upon the horizon.

The first night at sea! The traveler never forgets it. Scenes of the past may shine through it like ink renewed in the dimmed lines of a palimpsest through later records, but this night stands supreme as if it were the sum of all. For in this night the fatherland behind and the heart grown tender in the realization of its isolation, come back again the olden experiences. Dreams that have passed into the seas of eternity meet it and shine again. Old loves return and fold their wings, and hopes grown wrinkled with disappointment throw off dull Time's imprints and are young once more.

To the impressionable heart of the girl, the vastness and the solemnity brought strange thoughts. She stood by the rail, silenced, sad, but not with the sadness that oppresses. By her was the man who through life's hidden current had brought her all unknowing into harmony with the eternal echos rising into her consciousness.

At last she came back to life's facts. She found her hand in his again, and gently, without protest, disengaged it. Her face was white and fixed upon nothingness.

"Of what are you thinking?" she asked, gently. He started and drew breath with a gasp.

"I do not know—of you, I suppose." And then, as she was silent and embarrassed: "There is a tone in the ocean, a note I have never heard before, and I have listened on all seas. But here is the new song different from all. I could listen forever."

"I have read somewhere," she said, "that all the sound waves escape to the ocean. They jostle and push against each other where men abound, the new crowding out the old; but out at sea there is room for all. It may be that you hear only as your heart is attuned."

He nodded his head, pleased greatly.

"Then I have heard to-night," he said, earnestly, "a song of a woman to the man she loves."

"But you could not have heard it unless your heart was attuned to love's melodies. Have you ever loved a woman, Mr. Morgan?"

He started and his hand tightened upon the guard.

"I was a boy in heart when I went abroad," he said. "I had never known a woman's love and sympathy. In Switzerland a little girl gave me a glass of goat's milk at a cottage door in the mountains. She could not have been more than 12 years old. I heard her singing as I approached, her voice marvelous in its power and pathos. Her simple dress was artistic, her face frank and eyes confiding. I loved her. I painted her picture and carried her both in my heart and my satchel for three years. I did not love her and yet I believed I did. But I think that I must have loved at some time. As you say, I could not have heard if it were not so." He drew her away and sought the cabin. But when he said good-night he came and walked the deck for an hour, and once he tossed his arms above him and cried out in agony: "I cannot! I cannot! The heart was not made for such a strain!"

Six times they saw the sun rise over the path ahead, ascend to the zenith and sink away, and six times the endless procession of stars glinted on the myriad facets of the sea. The hundreds of strange faces about them grew familiar, almost homelike. The ladies made acquaintances; but Edward none. When they were accessible he never left their presence, devoting himself with tender solicitude to their service, reading to them, reciting bits of adventure, explaining the phenomena of the elements, exhibiting the ship and writing in their journals the record for the father at home. When they were gone he walked the deck silent, moody, sad; alone in the multitude.

People had ceased to interest him. Once only did he break the silence; from the ship's orchestra he borrowed a violin, and standing upon the deck, as at first, he found the love-song again and linked it forever with his life. It was the ocean's gift and he kept it.

He thought a great deal, but from the facts at home he turned resolutely. They should not mar the only summer of his heart. "Not now," he would say to these trooping memories. "After a while you may come and be heard."

But of the future he thought and dreamed. He pictured a life with the woman he loved, in every detail; discounting its pleasures, denying the possibility of sorrow. There were times when with her he found himself wishing to be alone that he might review the dream and enlarge it. It ceased to be a dream, it became a fact, he lived with it and he lived by it. It was possible no longer; it was certain. Some day he would begin it; he would tell it to her and make it so beautiful she would consent.

All this time the elder lady thought, listened and knitted. She was one of those gentle natures not made for contentions, but for soothing. She was never idle. Edward found himself watching the busy needles as they fought for the endless thread, and marveled. What patience! What continuity! What endurance!

The needles of good women preach as they labor. He knew the history of these. For forty years they had labored, those bits of steel in the velvet fingers. Husband, children, slaves, all had felt upon their feet the soft summings of their calculations. One whole company of soldiers, the gallant company her husband had led into Confederate service, had threaded the Wilderness in her socks, and died nearly all at Malvern Hill. Down deep under the soil of the old Mother State they planted her work from sight, and the storms of winter removed its imprints where, through worn and wasted leather, it had touched virgin soil as the bleeding survivors came limping home. Forty years had stilled the thought on which it was based. It was strong and resolute still. Some day the needles would rust out of sight, the hands be folded in rest and the thought would be gone. Edward glanced from the woman to the girl.

"Not so," he said, softly; "the thought will live. Other hands trained under its sweet ministry will take up the broken threads; the needles will flash again. Woman's work is never done, and never will be while love and faith and courage have lodgment upon earth.

"Did you speak, Mr. Morgan?"

"Possibly. I have fallen into the habit of thinking aloud. And I was thinking of you; it must have been a great privilege to call you mother, Mrs. Montjoy." She smiled a little.

"I am glad you think so."

"I have never called any by that name," he said, slowly, looking away. "I never knew a mother."

"That will excuse a great many things in a man's life," she said, in sympathy. "You have no remembrance, then?"

"None. She died when I was an infant, I suppose, and I grew up, principally, in schools."

"And your father?"

"He also—died." He was reckless for the moment. "Sometimes I think I will ask you to let me call you—mother. It is late to begin, but think of a man's living and dying without once speaking the name to a woman."

"Call me that if you will. You are certainly all that a son could be to me."

"Mother," he said, reflectively, "mother," and then looking toward Mary he saw that, though reading, her face was crimson; "that gives me a sister, does it not?" he added, to relieve the situation. She glanced toward him, smiling.

"As you will, brother Edward—how natural."

"I like the mother better," he said, after a pause. "I have observed that brothers do not wear well. I should hate to see the day when it would not be a pleasure to be with you, Miss Montjoy." He could not control nor define his mood.

"Then," she said, with eyes upon the book, "let it not be brother. I would be sorry to see you drift away—we are all your friends."

"Friends!" He repeated the word contemplatively. "That is another word I am not fond of. I have seen so many friends—not my own, but friends of others! Friends steal your good name, your opportunities, your happiness, your time and your salvation. Oh, friendship!"

"What is the matter with you to-day, Mr. Morgan?" said Mary. "I don't think I ever saw you in just such a frame of mind. What has made you cynical?"

"Am I cynical? I did not know it. Possibly I am undergoing a metamorphosis. Such things occur about us every day. Have you ever seen the locust, as he is called, come up out of the earth and attach himself to a tree and hang there brooding, living an absolutely worthless life? Some day a rent occurs down his own back and out comes the green cicada, with iridescent wings; no longer a dull plodder, but now a swift wanderer, merry and musical. So with the people about you. Useless and unpicturesque for years, they some day suffer a change; a piece of good luck, success in business; any of these can furnish sunlight, and the change is born. Behold your clodhopper is a gay fellow."

"But," said the girl, laughing, "the simile is poor; you do not see the cicada go back from the happy traveler stage and become a cynic."

"True. What does become of him? Oh, yes; along comes the ichneumon fly and by a skillful blow on the spine paralyzes him and then thrusts under his skin an egg to be warmed into life by its departing heat. That is the conclusion; your gay fellow and careless traveler gets an overwhelming blow; an idea or a fact, or a bit of information to brood upon; and some day it kills him."

She was silent, trying to read the meaning in his words. What idea, what fact, what overwhelming blow were killing him? Something, she was sure, had disturbed him. She had felt it for weeks.

Mrs. Montjoy expressed a desire to go to her stateroom, and Edward accompanied her. The girl had ceased reading and sat with her chin in hand, revolving the matter. After he had resumed his position she turned to find his gaze upon her. They walked to the deck; the air was cold and bracing.

"I am sorry you are so opposed to sisters," she said, smiling. "If I were a sister I would ask you to share your trouble with me."

"What trouble?"

"The trouble that is changing the careless traveler to a cynic—is killing his better self."

He ceased to speak in metaphor. "There is a trouble," he said, after reflection; "but one beyond your power to remedy or lighten. Some day I will tell it to you—but not now."

"You do not trust me."

"I do not trust myself." She was silent, looking away. She said no more. Pale and trembling with suppressed emotion, he stood up. A look of determination came into his eyes, and he faced her. At that moment a faint, far cry was heard and every one in sight looked forward.

"What is it?" asked a passenger, as the captain passed.

"The cliffs of England," he said. Edward turned and walked away, leaving her leaning upon the rail. He came back smoking. His mood had passed.

The excitement had begun at once. On glided the good ship. Taller grew the hills, shipping began to appear, and land objects to take shape. And then the deep heart throbbing ceased and the glad voyagers poured forth upon the shore.