Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-38.pdf/705

692

A BACHELOR'S BLUNDER. unintelligent Briton, who might be trusted to shoulder a way for his mistress through any ordinary difficulties, and who had been for many years in Dick’s service.

Thus protected, she set off on the following morning, declining Bertie's proffered escort as far as Liverpool, and maintaining up to the last an aspect of cheerfulness which that young gentleman hardly knew whether to admire or to deprecate. “If you hear nothing before you sail, try to think that no news is good news,” he said, as he helped her into the railway-carriage.

“There will be no need for trying,” she answered. “I am sure that Dick will get well again, and, even if I were not sure, I would not allow myself to think anything else.”

To many people the worst contingencies always appear the most probable, while others, more happily constituted, seem to be literally incapable of believing in a crushing disaster so long as any room remains for incredulity. Hope had as yet realized little more than that Dick was badly hurt and that she must go to him. Afterwards, when she had more leisure for reﬂection, she began to be very sorry for poor Jacob, who, she doubted not, had destroyed himself in a moment of madness. She recollected what good spirits he had been in at starting, and was convinced that what he had done could not have been pre-meditated. Her conclusions, in short, were precisely what Jacob had intended that they should be.

At Liverpool she found, as might have been anticipated, that the accommodation which she required was not to be had on board either of the outgoing steamers; but the ways of travellers to whom money is no object are generally made smooth for them, and the captain of one of the vessels was induced to cede his own cabin, when informed of the urgency of the case. Brooks, the butler, was more disappointed than his mistress when the steamer left Queenstown without any telegram from Farndon having been brought on board. “I did not expect to hear,” Hope said, in answer to the man’s expressions of regret; “and, you know, Mr. Herbert can hardly begin to mend for some days to come.”

It was, perhaps, no bad thing for her that she was prostrated by sea-sickness immediately after encountering the long Atlantic swell, and that for three days and nights she was unable to lift her head from her pillow. When at length, dizzy and confused, she managed to crawl up on deck, she was informed that the passage was already half accomplished, and that the daily runs had been highly creditable. The passengers, who had discovered her name and errand, showed her a great deal of kindly attention, doing their best to keep her mind from