‘Do not ask me, Mrs. Richards. I am unable to think.’ ‘Poor dear! Let me pour you out a glass of wine. It will be strange if you should prove a lady of title. And why should you not be a lady of title? You have the appearance of one. The moment I saw you I said to myself--and I said it to myself before I heard your story--“Though she has come out of a nasty little brig, I can see that she is a born lady.” Do you know that you have left your cap behind you?’ ‘It is in Mrs. Lee’s cabin,’ said I. ‘Try and eat your lunch,’ exclaimed the stewardess, ‘and after lunch, if I were you, I would lie down, and endeavour to get some sleep.’ I passed the afternoon alone. I lay in my bunk, unable to read, dozing a little, and when I was not dozing strutting with recollection, and often with fits of horror and despair dreadful as madness. Some time near five the stewardess looked in to say that Mrs. Webber wished to visit me. She was anxious to have a long quiet chat. Would I receive her? I answered no. I should require, I said, to feel very much better to be able to endure a long quiet chat with Mrs. Webber. ‘She asked me to give you this book,’ said Mrs. Richards. ‘She said she had marked the pages which she would like you to read.’ I took the book, and when Mrs. Richards was gone, languidly opened it, and found that it was a collection of verses written by Eleanor Webber, and dedicated ‘To my Husband.’ Two pages were dog’s-eared, and one of them contained a poem called the ‘Lonely Heart,’ and the other a poem called ‘The Lonely Soul.’ I tried to read these verses, but could not understand them. They jingled unmeaningly, though not unmusically, in a melancholy key. Why do they tease one with such stuff? I said to myself, putting the book down. The wind had increased during the afternoon, and the ship was leaning over with steep decks, which reminded me of the French brig. But how different was her motion as she rose stately to the seas, every massive heave of her satisfying and inspiring one with its suggestion of victorious power! I felt that the ship was rushing through the water. There was a peculiar tingling throughout her frame, as though she was thrilled from end to end by the sting and hiss of the milk-white brine which poured from either bow and raced in hills along her side, again and again clouding my cabin-window with a leap of seething dazzle, the blow and dissolving roar of which fell like a thunder-shock upon the ear.