"All night, sir, if the wind don't head us yet. It won't put us far off our port even at this." "Shall you sight the _Start_ light?" "No, sir. Our stretching away all day'll have put it out of our _spear_ of view. The Lizard light'll be all I want, and this time twenty-four hours I hope to be well on to it." I went below, and Grace and I killed the time as heretofore in talking and reading. We found the evening too short indeed, so much had we to say to each other. Wonderful is the quality and the amount of talk which lovers are able to get through and feel satisfied with! You hear of silent love, of lovers staring on one another with glowing eyes, their lips incapable of the emotions and sensations which crowd their quick hearts and fill their throats with sighs. This may be very well too; but, for my part, I have generally observed that lovers have a very great deal to talk about. Remark an engaged couple; sooner than be silent they will whisper if there be company present; and when alone, or when they think themselves alone, their tongues--particularly the girl's--are never still. Grace and I were of a talking age--two-and-twenty, and one not yet eighteen; our minds had no knowledge of life, no experience, nothing in them to keep them steady; they were set in motion by the lightest, the most trivial breath of thought, and idly danced in us in the manner of some gossamer-light, topmost leaf to the faintest movement of the summer air. She withdrew to her berth at ten o'clock that night with a radiant face and laughing eyes, for inane as the evening must have shown to others, to us it had been one of perfect felicity; not a single sigh had escaped her, and twice had I mentioned the name of Mrs. Howe without witnessing any change of countenance in her. I went on deck to take a last look round, and found all well; no change in the weather, the breeze a brisk and steady pouring out of the north, and Caudel pacing the deck well satisfied with our progress. I returned below without any feeling of uneasiness, and sat at the cabin table for some ten minutes or so to smoke out a cigar, and to refresh myself with a glass of seltzer and brandy. A sort of dream-like feeling came upon me as I sat. I found it hard to realise that my sweetheart was close to me, separated only by a curtained door from the cabin I was musing in. What was to follow this adventure? Was it possible that Lady Amelia Roscoe would oppose any obstacle to our union after even _this_ association of three or four days as it might be? I gazed at the mirrors I had equipped the cabin with--picked up a handkerchief my sweetheart had left behind her and kissed it--stared at the little silver shining lamp that swung over my head--pulled a flower and smelt it in a vacant sort of way of which, nevertheless, I was perfectly sensible.... Is there anything wrong with my nerves to-night? thought I.