‘Finn says yes. She exactly answers to the “Shark’s” description. Hereabouts she should be, this is her track,--yes, yes, it is the “Shark.” Would God it were Monday!’ Then, seeing me looking, he bawled, ‘Eh, Charles, what other ship should she prove? Fore and aft--fore and aft, of the “Shark’s” burthen, as you and Finn say, a schooner, a pleasure craft by the colour of her canvas--’ his face suddenly darkened, and he said something to Miss Jennings, but what I could not gather. She half turned away as if overcome by a sudden sense of sickness or faintness; the effect of some expression of fierce joy, I dare say, on his part, some savage whisper of assurance that his opportunity was not far distant now which acted upon her nervous system that trembled yet to the surprise of the news I had sent her through her maid. There was something so sad and appealing in her beauty just then that but for the feelings it possessed me with I might scarcely have suspected what a lover’s heart I already carried in my breast for her. The troubled sweetness of her glances, her pale cheeks and lips, the swift rise and fall of her bosom, betokened consternation and the conflict of many emotions and, as I could not but think, a subduing sense of loneliness. Well, I must say I loved her the better for this weakness of spirit, for this recoil from the confrontment that she had been endeavouring to persuade herself she was looking forward to with a longing for it only a little less venomous than Wilfrid’s. Nothing, I had thought again and again, but the soul of a fond, tender, chaste woman, gentle in mind and of a nature loveable, with the best weaknesses of her sex, could go clad in such graces as she walked in withal from her topmost curl of gold to the full, firm, elegant little foot on which she seemed to float to the buoyant measures of the yacht’s deck. Wilfrid addressed her again hurriedly and eagerly with the gesticulations of a Jew in a passion. She answered softly, continuously sending scared looks over the yacht’s bow. I heard him name his wife, but it was not for me to join them nor to listen, so I overhung the taffrail afresh, observing that even now there was a noticeable weakening in the weight of the wind, whilst the swing of the swell from a little to the westward of north was growing more regular, a longer and fuller heave with an opalescent glance in the vapour immediately over the sea-line as though the weather was clearing past the rim of the ocean. ‘Mr. Monson.’ I turned. Miss Laura stood by my side. Wilfrid had left the deck. ‘Is that vessel, that is said to be ahead of us, the ‘Shark,’ do you think?’ ‘I wish I knew positively for your sake, that I might relieve your anxiety.’