‘Dr. Thorne, will you stop that Luc boat, if you please? Never mind my nets, they can go anywhere. Attendez, matelots! Attendez moi,’ cried Cassandra in her own peculiar French, and signalling with her handkerchief to the boat, already a few lengths distant from the steamer. ‘It would scarcely do, Doctor, to let matters shape themselves with such very slight rough-hewing! Some one must go ashore without delay. Think of Linda’s anxiety if the _Princess_ should leave before she had been assured of your safety!’ ‘I think of many things,’ said Dr. Thorne, with humour, ‘the dampness of the night pre-eminently. Of course, I must go. Still, Linda might have exercised her reason--such reason as Providence bestows on the sex. Linda is not a child. What possible good could come from this kind of wild-goose chase?’ And the old Doctor moved an inch or two, exceedingly crusty of mien, in the direction of the companion ladder. But this was not the plan of Cassandra Tighe’s campaign. ‘You will just stay comfortably where you are; you will keep a dry plank under your feet, Dr. Thorne, and give me carte blanche to look after your wife. If the _Princess_ starts without us, Linda and I must find our way back to Guernsey. I have a purse in my pocket, Linda has a brain in her head. We both know how to travel. To you, Mrs. Arbuthnot, I confide my treasure.’ Turning round she gave Dinah a little chip box, clasping the girl’s cold hands for an instant as she did so. ‘Take care of _Pontia Daplidice_, my dear, and take care of yourself. Look for your cloak by all means. Doctor Thorne, do you persuade Ozanne to give us every possible moment’s law. I have a presentiment that all will come right, that your good wife’s over-anxiety will not lead her into mischief.’ The unwieldy Luc boat was by this time swaying to and fro at the bottom of the ladder. A Luc fisherman stood, with bare brawny arms extended, for Cassandra’s reception. A few seconds later Cassandra and boat, alike, had become a dark spot on the water, luminous now with the quick-moving facets of the rising tide. Dinah was alone, indeed! She stood, for a time, mechanically watching the row of lights on shore, mechanically listening to the steam as it puffed, with energy unmistakable, from the funnels of the _Princess_. Then, uncertain of tread, heavy of limb as of heart, she groped her way below, resolved, silently, to endure whatever fate the coming half-hour might have in store for her. The cabin lamps were as yet unlighted. Dinah entered the ladies’ saloon, at hazard. She sank down on the couch nearest the door. Then, burying her face between her hands, she strove, with might, to collect her thoughts, to stifle the resentment against Gaston which conscience, sternly just, already condemned as paltry--ungenerous.