Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/56

36 all the watches on board were regulated by the statement which had just been made.

Half-an-hour later, the following observation was posted up. Lat. 51° 10' N., Long. 24° 13' W., Course, 227 miles. Distance 550.

We had thus made two hundred and twenty-seven miles since noon the day before.

I did not see Fabian once during the day. Several times, uneasy about his absence, I passed his cabin, and was convinced that he had not left it. He must have wished to avoid the crowd on deck, and evidently sought to isolate himself from this tumult. I met Captain Corsican, and for an hour we walked on the poop. He often spoke of Fabian, and I could not help telling him what had passed between Fabian and myself the evening before.

"Yes," said Captain Corsican, with an emotion he did not try to disguise. "Two years ago Fabian had the right to think himself the happiest of men, and now he is the most unhappy." Archibald Corsican told me, in a few words, that at Bombay Fabian had known a charming young girl, a Miss Hodges. He loved her, and was beloved by her. Nothing seemed to hinder a marriage between Miss Hodges and Captain MacElwin; when, by her father's consent, the young girl's hand was sought by the son of a merchant at Calcutta. It was an old business affair, and Hodges, a harsh, obstinate, and unfeeling man, who happened at this time to be in a delicate position with his Calcutta correspondent, thinking that the marriage would settle everything well, sacrificed his daughter to the interests of his fortune. The poor child could not resist; they put her hand into that of the man she did not and could not love, and who, from all appearance, had no love for her. It was a mere business transaction, and a barbarous deed. The husband carried off his wife the day after they were married, and since then Fabian has never seen her whom he has always loved. This story showed me clearly that the grief which seemed to oppress Fabian was indeed serious.

"What was the young girl's name?" asked I of Captain Corsican.

"Ellen Hodges," replied he.

"Ellen,—that name explains the letters which Fabian thought he saw yesterday in the ship's track. And what