The pleasant days went on—April went out—May came in. On the tenth of May, the Stuart family, Sir Victor Catheron, and Lady Helena Powyss were to sail from New York for Liverpool.

To Edith, fresh from the twilight of her country life, these days and nights had been one bewildering round of excitement and delight. Opera, theatre, dinner and evening parties, shopping, driving, calling, receiving—all that goes to make the round of that sort of life, had been run. Her slender wardrobe had been replenished, the white Swiss had been reinforced by half-a-dozen glistening silks; the corals, by a set of rubies and fine gold. Mr. Stuart might be pompous and pretentious, but he wasn't stingy, and he had insisted upon it for his own credit. And half-a-dozen "spandy new" silks, fresh from Stewart's counters, with the pristine glitter of their bloom yet upon them, were very different from one half-worn amber tissue of Trixy's. Miss Darrell took the dresses and the rubies, and looked uncommonly handsome in both.

On the last night but one, of their stay in New York, Mrs. Featherbrain gave a last "At Home," a sort of "P. P. C." party, Trixy called it. Miss Darrell was invited, and said nothing at the time, unless tossing the card of invitation contemptuously out of the window can be called saying something; but at the last moment she declined to go.

"My head is whirling now, from a surfeit of parties," she said to Miss Stuart. "Aunt Chatty is going to stay at home, and so shall I. I don't like your Mrs. Featherbrain—that's the truth—and I'm not fashionable enough yet to sham friendship with women I hate. Besides, Trix dear, you know you were a little—just a little—jealous of me, the other night at Roosevelt's. Sir Victor danced with me once oftener than he did with you. Now, you dear old love, I'll let you have a whole baronet to yourself, for this night, and who knows what may happen before morning?"

Miss Edith Darrell was one of those young persons—happily rare—who, when they take a strong antipathy, are true to it, even at the sacrifice of their own pleasure. In her secret soul, she was jealous of Mrs. Featherbrain. If she and Charley carried on their imbecile flirtation, at least it would not be under her disgusted eyes.

Miss Stuart departed—not the lilies of the field—not Solomon in all his glory—not the Queen of Sheba herself, ever half so magnificent. Charley went with her, a placid martyr to brotherly duty. And Edith went down to the family sitting-room where Aunt Chatty (Aunt Chatty by request) sat dozing in her after-dinner chair.

"We are going to have an 'At home' all to our two selves to-night, auntie," Edith, said, kissing her thin cheek; "and I am going to sing you to sleep, by way of beginning."

She was fond of Aunt Chatty—a meek soul, born to be tyrannized over, and tyrannized over, from her very cradle. One of those large women, who obey their small husbands in fear and trembling, who believe everything they are told, who "bless the squire and his relations, and live contented with their stations;" who are bullied by their friends, by their children, by their servants, and who die meekly some day, and go to Heaven.

Edith opened the piano and began to play. She was looking very handsome to-night, in green silk and black-lace, one half-shattered rose in her hair. She looked handsome—at least so the young man who entered unobserved, and stood looking at her, evidently thought.

She had not heard him enter, but presently some mesmeric rapport between them, told her he was near. She turned her head and saw him. Aunt Chatty caught sight of him, in her semi-sleeping state, at the same moment.

"Dear me, Charley," his mother said, "you here? I thought you went to Mrs. Featherbrain's?"

"So I did," replied Charley. "I went—I saw—I returned—and here I am, if you and Dithy will have me for the rest of the evening."

"Edith and I were very well off without you. We had peace, and that is more than we generally have when you and she come together. You shall be allowed to stay only on one condition, and that is that you don't quarrel."

"I quarrel?" Charley said, lifting his eyebrows to the middle of his forehead. "My dear mother, your mental blindness on many points, is really deplorable. It's all Edith's fault—all; one of the few fixed principles of my life, is never to quarrel with anybody. It upsets a man's digestion, and is fatiguing in the extreme. Our first meeting," continued Mr. Stuart, stretching himself out leisurely on a sofa, "at which, Edith fell in love with me at sight, was a row. Well, if it wasn't a row, it was an unpleasantness of some sort. You can't deny, Miss Darrell, there was a coolness between us. Didn't we pass the night in a snow-drift? Since then, every other meeting has been a succession of rows. Injustice to myself, and the angelic sweetness of my own disposition, I must repeat, the beginning, middle, and ending of each, lies with her. She will bully, and I never could stand being bullied—I always knock under. But I warn her—a day of retribution is at hand. In self-defence I mean to marry her, and then, base miscreant, beware! The trodden worm will turn, and plunge the iron into her own soul. May I ask what you are laughing at, Miss Darrell?"

"A slight confusion of metaphor, Charley—nothing more. What have you done with Trix?"

"Trix is all right in the matronly charge of Mrs. Featherbrain, and engaged ten deep to the baronet. By the bye, the baronet was inquiring for you, with a degree of warmth and solicitude, as unwelcome as it was uncalled for. A baronet for a brother-in-law is all very well—a baronet for a rival is not well at all. Now, my dear child, try to overcome the general nastiness of your cranky disposition, for once, and make yourself agreeable. I knew you were pining on the stem for me at home, and so I threw over the last crush of the season, made Mrs. Featherbrain my enemy for life, and here I am. Sing us something."

Miss Darrell turned to the piano with a frown, but her eyes were smiling, and in her secret heart she was well-content. Charley was beside her. Charley had given up the ball and Mrs. Featherbrain for her. It was of no use denying it, she was fond of Charley. Of late it had dawned dimly and deliciously upon her that Sir Victor Catheron was growing very attentive. If so wildly improbable a thing could occur, as Sir Victor's falling in love with her, she was ready at any moment to be his wife; but for the love which alone makes marriage sweet and holy, which neither time, nor trouble, nor absence, can change—that love she felt for her cousin Charley, and no other mortal man.

It was a very pleasant evening—how pleasant, Edith did not care to own, even to herself. Aunt Chatty dozed sweetly in her arm-chair, she in her place at the piano, and Charley taking comfort on his sofa, and calmly and dispassionately finding fault with her music. That those two could spend an evening, an hour, together, without disagreeing, was simply an utter impossibility. Edith invariably lost her temper—nothing earthly ever disturbed Charley's. Presently, in anger and disgust, Miss Darrell jumped up from the piano-stool, and protested she would play no more.

"To be told I sing Kathleen Mavourneen flat, and that the way I hold my elbows when I play Thalberg's 'Home,' is frightful to behold, I will not stand! Like all critics, you find it easier to point out one's faults, than to do better. It's the very last time, sir, I'll ever play a note for you!"

But, somehow, after a skirmish at euchre, at which she was ignobly beaten, and, I must say, shamefully cheated, she was back at the piano, and it was the clock striking twelve that made her start at last.

"Twelve! Goodness me. I didn't think it was half-past ten!" Mr. Stuart smiled, and stroked his mustache with calm complacency. "Aunt Chatty, wake up! It's midnight—time all good little women were in bed."

"You need not hurry yourself on that account, Dithy," Charley suggests, "if the rule only applies to good little women."

Miss Darrell replies with a glance of scorn, and wakes up Mrs. Stuart.

"You were sleeping so nicely I thought it a pity to wake you sooner. Come, auntie dear, we'll go upstairs together. You know we have a hard day's work before us to-morrow. Good-night, Mr. Stuart."

"Good-night, my love," Mr. Stuart responded, making no attempt to stir. Edith linked her strong, young arm in that of her sleepy aunt and led her upstairs. He lay and watched the slim green figure, the beautiful bright face, as it disappeared in a mellow flood of gaslight. The clear, sweet voice came floating saucily back:

"And Charley he's my darling,
My darling—my darling,
And Charley he's my darling,
The young Chevalier!"

All that was sauciest, and most coquettish in the girl's nature, came out with Charley. With Sir Victor, as Trixy explained it, she was "goody" and talked sense.

Mr. Stuart went back to the ball, and, I regret to say, made himself obnoxious to old Featherbrain, by the marked empressement of his devotion to old Featherbrain's wife. Edith listened to the narration next day from the lips of Trix with surprise and disgust. Miss Stuart, on her own account, was full of triumph and happiness. Sir Victor had been most devoted, "most devoted" said Trix, in italics, "that is, for him. He danced with me very often, and he spoke several times of you, Dithy, dear. He couldn't understand why you absented yourself from the last party of the season—no more can I for that matter. A person may hate a person like poison—I often do myself—and yet go to that person's parties."

But this was a society maxim Miss Darrell could by no means be brought to understand. Where she liked she liked, where she hated she hated—there were no half measures for her.

The last day came. At noon, with a brilliant May sun shining, the ship fired her farewell guns, and steamed away for Merrie England. Edith leaned over the bulwark and watched the receding shore, with her heart in her eyes.

"Good-by to home," she said, a smile on her lip, a tear in her eye. "Who knows when and how I may see it again. Who knows whether I shall ever see it?"

The luncheon bell rang; everybody—a wonderful crowd too—flocked merrily downstairs to the saloon, where two long tables, bright with crystal and flowers, were spread. What a delightful thing was an ocean voyage, and sea-sickness—bah!—merely an illusion of the senses.

After lunch, Charley selected the sunniest spot on deck for his resting-place, and the prettiest girl on board, for his companion, spread out his railway rug at her feet, spread out himself thereon, and prepared to be happy and be made love to. Trix, on the arm of the baronet, paraded the deck, Mrs. Stuart and Lady Helena buried themselves in the seclusion of the ladies' cabin, in expectation of the wrath to come. Edith got a camp-stool and a book, and hid herself behind the wheel-house for a little of private enjoyment. But she did not read; it was delight enough to sit and watch the old ocean smiling, and smiling like any other coquette, as though it could never be cruel.

The afternoon wore on; the sun dropped low, the wind arose—so did the sea. And presently—staggering blindly on Sir Victor's arm, pale as death, with speechless agony imprinted on every feature—Trixy made her appearance behind the wheel house.

"O Edith, I feel awfully—awfully! I feel like death—I feel—"

She wrenched her arm from the baronet's, rushed wildly to the side, and—Edith's dark, laughing eyes looked up into the blue ones, that no effort of Sir Victor's could quite control. The next moment she was by Trixy's side, leading that limp and pallid heroine to the regions below, whence, for five mortal days, she emerged not, nor did the eye of man rest on Miss Beatrix Stuart.

The weather was fine, but the wind and sea ran tolerably high, and of course everybody mostly was tolerably sick. One day's ordeal sufficed for Edith's tribute to old Neptune; after that, she never felt a qualm. A great deal of her time was spent in waiting upon Aunt Chatty and Trix, both of whom were very far gone indeed. In the case of Miss Stuart, the tortures of jealousy were added to the tortures of sea-sickness. Did Sir Victor walk with the young ladies on deck? Did he walk with her, Edith? Did he ever inquire for herself? Oh, it was shameful—shameful that she should be kept prostrate here, unable to lift her head! At this juncture, generally, in her excitement, Trixy did lift it, and the consequence was—woe.

It was full moon before they reached mid-ocean. How Edith enjoyed it, no words can tell. Perhaps it was out of merciful compassion to Trix, but she did not tell her of the long, brisk twilight, mid-day, and moonlight walks she and the baronet took on deck. How, leaning over the bulwarks, they watched the sun set, round and red, into the sea, and the silver sickle May moon rise, like another Aphrodite, out of the waves. She did not tell her, how they sat side by side at dinner, how he lay at her feet, and read aloud for her, in sheltered sunny nooks, how uncommonly friendly and confidential they became altogether, in these first half-dozen days out. People grow intimate in two days at sea, as they would not in two years on land. Was it all gentlemanly courtesy and politeness on the baronet's side? the girl sometimes wondered. She could analyze her own feelings pretty well. Of that fitful, feverish passion called love, described by the country swain as feeling—"hot and dry like—with a pain in the side like," she felt no particle. There was one, Mr. Charles Stuart, lying about in places, looking serene and sunburnt, who saw it all with sleepy, half-closed eyes, and kept his conclusions to himself. "Kismet!" he thought; "the will of Allah be done. What is written is written. Sea-sickness is bad enough, without the green-eyed monster. Even Othello, if he had been crossing in a Cunard ship, would have put off the pillow performance until they reached the other side."

One especial afternoon, Edith fell asleep after luncheon, on a sofa, in her own and Trixy's cabin, and slept through dinner and dessert, and only woke with the lighting of the lamps. Trix lay, pale and wretched, gazing out of the porthole, at the glory of moonlight on the heaving sea, as one who sorrows without hope of consolation.

"I hope you enjoyed your forty winks, Edith," she remarked; "what a Rip Van Winkle you are! For my part, I've never slept at all since I came on board this horrid ship! Now, where are you going?"

"To get something to eat from my friend the stewardess," Edith answered; "I see I am too late for dinner."

Miss Darrell went, and got some tea and toast. Then wrapping herself in a blanket shawl, and tying a coquettish red wool hood over her hair, she ascended to the deck.

It was pretty well deserted by the ladies—none the worse for that, Edith thought. The full moon shone with untold splendor, over the vast expanse of tossing sea, heaving with that majestic swell, that never quite lulls on the mighty Atlantic. The gentlemen filled the smoking-room, the "Tabak Parliament" was at its height. She took a camp-stool, and made for her favorite sheltered spot behind the wheel-house. How grand it was—the starry sky, the brilliant white moon, the boundless ocean—that long trail of silvery radiance stretching miles behind. An icy blast swept over the deep, but, wrapped in her big shawl, Edith could defy even that. She forgot Sir Victor and the daring ambition of her life. She sat absorbed in the beauty and splendor of that moonlight on the sea. Very softly, very sweetly, half unconsciously, she began singing "The Young May Moon," when a step behind made her turn her head. It was Sir Victor Catheron. She awoke from her dream—came back to earth, and was of the world worldly, once more. The smile that welcomed him was very bright. She would have blushed if she could; but it is a disadvantage of pale brunettes that they don't blush easily.

"I heard singing, sweet and faint, and I give you my word, Miss Darrell, I thought it might be the Lurline, or a stray mermaid combing her sea-green locks. It is all very beautiful, of course, but are you not afraid of taking cold?"

"I never take cold," Miss Darrell answered; "influenza is an unknown disease. Has the tobacco parliament broken up, that I behold you here?"

"It is half-past eleven—didn't you know it?—and all the lights are out."

"Good Heaven!" Edith cried, starting up aghast; "half-past eleven! What will Trixy say? Really, moon-gazing must be absorbing work. I had no idea it was after ten."

"Stay a moment, Miss Darrell," Sir Victor interposed, "there is something I would like to say to you—something I have wished to speak of, since we came on board."

Edith's heart gave one great jump—into her mouth it seemed. What could such a preface as this portend, save one thing? The baronet spoke again, and Miss Darrell's heart sunk down to the very soles of her buttoned boots.

"It is concerning those old papers, the Chesholm Courier. You understand, and—and the lamentable tragedy they chronicle."

"Yes?" said Miss Darrell, shutting her lips tight.

"It is naturally a deeply painful subject to me. Twenty-three years have passed; I was but an infant at the time, yet if it had, occurred only a year ago, I think I could hardly feel it more keenly than I do—hardly suffer more, when I speak of it."

"Then why speak of it?" was the young lady's very sensible question. "I have no claim to hear it, I am sure."

"No," the young man responded, and even in the moonlight she could see his color rise, "perhaps not, and yet I wanted to speak to you of it ever since. I don't know why, it is something I can scarcely bear to think of even, and yet I feel a sort of relief in speaking of it to you. Perhaps there is 'rapport' between us—that we are affinities—who knows?"

Who indeed! Miss Darrell's heart came up from her boots, to its proper place, and stayed there.

"It was such a terrible thing," the young man went on, "such a mysterious thing. To this day it is wrapped in darkness. She was so young, so fair, so good—it seems too horrible for belief, that any human being could lift his hand against so innocent a life. And yet it was done."

"A most terrible thing," Edith said; "but one has only to read the papers, to learn such deeds of horror are done every day. Life is a terribly sensational story. You say it is shrouded in darkness, but the Chesholm Courier did not seem at all in the dark."

"You mean Inez Catheron. She was innocent."

"Indeed!"

"She was not guilty, except in this—she knew who was guilty, and concealed it. Of that, I have reason to be sure."

"Her brother, of course—the Juan Catheron of the papers?"

"Who is to tell? Even that is not certain. No," in answer to her look of surprise, "it is not certain. I am sure my aunt believes in his innocence."

"Then who—"

"Ah—who?" the baronet said mournfully, "who was the murderer? It may be that we will never know."

"You will know," Edith said decidedly. "I am sure of it. I am a firm believer in the truism that 'murder will out.' Sooner or later you will know."

She spoke with the calm conviction of prophecy. She looked back to shudder at her own words in the after-days.

"Three-and-twenty years is a tolerable time to forget even the bitterest sorrow, but the thought of that tragedy is as bitter to my aunt to-day, as it was when it was done. She cannot bear to speak of it—I believe she cannot bear to think of it. What I know, therefore, concerning it, I have learned from others. Until I was eighteen, I knew absolutely nothing. Of my mother, of course I have no remembrance, and yet"—his eyes and tone grew dreamy—"as far back as I can recall, there is in my mind the memory of a woman, young and handsome, bending above my bed, kissing and crying over me. My mother was fair, the face I recall is dark. You will think me sentimental—you will laugh at me, perhaps," he said, smiling nervously; "you will set me down as a dreamer of dreams, and yet it is there."

Her dark, earnest eyes looked up at him, full of womanly sympathy.

"Laugh at you! Think better of me, Sir Victor. In these days it is rare enough to see men with either memory or veneration for their mother—whether dead or alive."

He looked at her; words seemed struggling to his lips. Once he half spoke. Then he checked himself suddenly. When he did speak it was with a total change of tone.

"And I am keeping you selfishly here in the cold. Take my arm, Miss
Darrell; you must not stop another instant."

She obeyed at once. He led her to her cabin-door—hesitated—took her hand and held it while he spoke:

"I don't know why, as I said before, I have talked of this; I could not have done it with any one else. Let me thank you for your sympathy with all my heart."

Then he was gone; and, very grave and thoughtful, Edith sought Trixy and the upper berth. Miss Stuart lay calmly sleeping the sleep of the just and the sea-sick, blissfully unconscious of the traitorous goings on about her. Edith looked at her with a sort of twinge. Was it fair, after all? was it strictly honorable? "Poor Trix," she said, kissing her softly, "I don't think it will be you!"

Next morning, at breakfast, Miss Darrell noticed that Mr. Stuart, junior, watched her as he sipped his coffee, with a portentous countenance that foreboded something. What it foreboded came out presently. He led her on deck—offered her his arm for a morning constitutional, and opened fire thus wise:

"What were you and the baronet about on deck at abnormal hours of the night? What was the matter with you both?"

"Now, now!" cried Edith, "how do you come to know anything about it? What business have small boys like you, spying on the actions of their elders, when they should be safely tucked up, and asleep in their little beds?"

"I wasn't spying; I was asleep. I have no restless conscience to keep me prowling about at unholy hours."

"How do you come to know, then?"

"A little bird told me."

"I'll twist your little bird's neck! Who was it, sir? I command you."

"How she queens it already! Don't excite yourself, you small Amazon.
It was the officer of the deck."

"The officer of the deck might be much better employed; and you may tell him so, with my compliments."

"I will; but you don't deny it—you were there!"

"I never deny my actions," she says with royal disdain; "yes, I was there."

"With Sir Victor—alone?"

"With Sir Victor—alone!"

"What did you talk about, Miss Darrell?"

"More than I care to repeat for your edification, Mr. Stuart. Have you any more questions to ask, pray?"

"One or two; did he ask you to marry him, Edith?"

"Ah, no!" Edith answers with a sigh that is genuine; "there is no such luck as that in store for Dithy Darrell. A baronet's bride—Lady Catheron! no, no—the cakes and ale of life are not for me."

"Would you marry him, if he did? Will you marry him when he does? for that is what it comes to, after all."

"Would I marry him?" She looks at him in real incredulous wonder. "Would I marry Sir Victor Catheron—I? My dear Charley, when you ask rational questions, I shall be happy to answer them, to the best of my ability, but not such absurdity as that."

"Then, you will?"

"Charley, don't be a tease—what do young persons of your juvenile years know about such things? I don't like the turn this conversation has taken; let us change it, let us talk about the weather—that's always a safe subject. Isn't it a splendid morning? Isn't it charming to have a perpetual fair wind? And how are you going to account for it, that the wind is always fair going to England, and always ahead coming out?

"'England, my country—great and free
Heart of the world—I leap to thee!'"

She sings, with a wicked look in her dark eyes, as she watches her cavalier.

Charley is not going to be put off however; he declines to talk of either wind or weather.

"Answer my question, Edith, if you please. If Sir Victor Catheron asks you, will you be his wife?"

She looks at him calmly, steadily, the man she loves, and answers:

"If Sir Victor Catheron asks me, I will be his wife."