"You are going!" Ely repeated. "You wish to go?" She looked the young man in the face. She saw that delicate physiognomy whose emotion touched her in a way she had never known before, and that fine mouth, still trembling from the words just spoken. The thought of being forever deprived of his presence suddenly became real to her with a vividness which was physically intolerable, and with this came the certainty of happiness if they should yield to the profound instinct that drew them toward each other. She abandoned her will to the force of her irresistible desire, and, feeling aloud, she said:-- "You shall not go, you cannot go. I am so lonely, so abandoned, so miserable. I have nothing genuine and true around me; nothing, nothing, nothing. And must I lose you?" She rose with a passionate movement, which brought Hautefeuille also to his feet, and, approaching him, her eyes close to his, supernaturally beautiful with the light that illuminated her admirable face in the rush of her soul into her lips and eyes, she took his two hands in her hands, and, as though by this pressure and these words she would mingle her being with his, she cried:-- "No, you shall not leave me. We will not separate. That is not possible since you are in love with me, and I with you." CHAPTER V AFLOAT Fifteen days had passed since Madame de Carlsberg, in spite of her promises, her resolutions, her remorse, had confessed her passion to Pierre Hautefeuille. The date fixed for the cruise of the Jenny had arrived, and he and she were standing side by side on the deck of the yacht, which was bearing also the Marquise Bonnacorsi toward her fantastic marriage, and her confidante, Miss Marsh, and pretty Madame de Chésy and her husband for the entertainment of the Commodore. That was the nickname given by his niece to the indefatigable Carlyle Marsh, who, in truth, scarcely ever left the bridge, where he stood directing the course of the boat with the skill of a professional sailor. This Marionville potentate would have had no pleasure in a carriage unless he drove it, or in a yacht unless he steered it. He said himself, without boasting:-- "If I should be ruined to-morrow I know twenty ways of making a living. I am a mechanic, coachman, carpenter, pilot."