Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/268

 "You might, as we shall be in the Mersey early in the morning and there's packing up to be done. But I'll take another turn. Good-night."

"Well, if you send me to bed, good-night. I daresay another ten minutes in the fresh air will take the blues out of you."

For another hour Lord Francis tramped up and down, unconscious of the unlit cigar in his mouth, thinking of the time when he first met Fenella, of the years of idyllic happiness that followed their wedding day, of Ronny's appearance on the scene, of the little rift in the lute that, unwatched, broadened slowly, and made all the music of their young lives mute.

Softly he sang to himself:

"Going to be a nasty night," said a tarpaulined figure, looming out of the murk that enveloped the fore-part of the deck, over which the spray drifted as the Danic plunged her head into the angry sea, and lifting it again shook it as a retriever dashes the water off its front.

"So it seems, bos'n," said Lord Francis. "But we're not far off port now. Good-night."

"Good-night, my lord. Better not leave things loose about in your stateroom to-night."

Jacynth slept the sleep of a man with a quiet conscience and a good digestion, who had passed