‘Heaven forbid!’ exclaimed Egerton, as he turned away to seek his cabin. His conversation with the old seaman had had the effect of increasing his depression, and he felt as if he could not trust himself to argue with him any longer. He would have much preferred on this sultry evening to take up his usual quarters on the poop, where the rest of the passengers were assembled; but he had not the courage to go there. So the poor young fellow left the deck, and, entering his cabin threw himself down upon the sofa, which served him for a bedstead, and abandoned himself to the luxury of grief. He was altogether too young and too good-looking to feel so utterly bereft of hope. His bright brown curls covered a brow which was full of intellect, and bore upon its broad expanse the best sign of an honourable man—the impress of frankness and truth. His deep blue eyes, now so dull and troubled with disappointment, were generally bright and mirthful, and his athletic limbs, although but the growth of four-and-twenty years, gave promise of an unusual acquisition of manly strength and power. And Richard Egerton had other heritages besides those of youth and beauty. He was the possessor, as the old seaman had intimated, of wealth and influence. He had been adopted in his infancy by a rich relation, who had lately died, leaving him the whole of his fortune and his large estates in Barbadoes, on the condition that he assumed the name of Egerton, instead of that which had been his by birth. But what did all these advantages avail the poor lad to-day?—this day which had dawned so full of hope, and was now about to set upon the heaviest heart he had ever carried in his bosom. And pretty Amy Herbert, whose laughter still reached his ear at times, even where he lay, was the cause of all this trouble. They were not entirely new acquaintances. He had met her in England some months before, and had taken his passage to Barbadoes by the “Star of the North” only because he heard that she was going to travel in it to join her father, who was a civilian of some repute in Trinidad. He had admired her from the first moment of their acquaintance, and the weeks they had spent on board had ripened his admiration into love, and made him hope, as he had had every reason to do, that she was not indifferent to himself. He believed that his position as owner of considerable property in the West Indies would have ensured a favourable reception at the hands of her father, and had approached the subject of marriage with her, if not with the certainty of being met halfway, at least with a modest hope that she could not think him presumptuous. And Amy Herbert had refused his offer—point-blank and without hesitation—unequivocally and decidedly refused it. It had fallen upon him as an unmitigated blow. How lovely she had looked that morning when he found her sitting in her basket-chair in a corner of the poop, shading her sweet, soft eyes from the glaring light with a rose-lined parasol.