Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/277

 CHAPTER XXI.

"ALIVE OR DEAD."

The Liverpool streets were, as usual, muddy, crowded, and malodorous; but had they been bowers of Elysian bliss they could not be traversed by men with gladder hearts than those of Onslow and Jacynth when they set foot on English soil. The gladness was of a sober sort, and tinged, perhaps, by anxiety for the future and sorrow for the past; but there was a natural elation, brought about by the recollections of the peril that they had escaped, and triumph in the thought of Ronny's restoration to his mother's arms. They took a friendly leave of the captain and officers of the ship which had brought them to Liverpool, and then proceeded to the nearest hotel, where they intended to stay for a few hours only, in order to replenish their pockets and wardrobes.

"Shall we telegraph to Fenella?" Frank asked wistfully; and Jacynth replied, in a brisker tone:

"Why, of course, or she will be hearing some garbled version of the shipwreck story, and will imagine that she has lost Ronny forever." 262