‘If she should prove to be the vessel that my sister is in’--she drew a long, tremulous breath--‘it will be a marvellous meeting, for I feel _now_ as you have felt all through--now that that yacht is in sight from the mast up there--that this ocean is a vast wilderness.’ She slowly ran her eyes, which were still charged with their scared look, along the sea-line. ‘Well, Miss Jennings, hanging and marriage go by destiny, they say, and so does chasing a wife at sea apparently. I give you my word I am so excited I can scarcely talk.’ ‘But it may not be the ‘Shark.’’ ‘Why, no.’ ‘I hope it is not,’ she cried, starting to the rise in her voice with a glance at the helmsman, who stood near us. ‘I can see that in your face,’ said I. ‘Oh, I hope it is not, and yet I want it to be the “Shark” too. Wilfrid must recover Henrietta. But it makes my heart stand still to think of our meeting. Oh, her shame! her shame! and then to find _me_ here. And what is to happen?’ ‘Best let that craft turn out to be the “Shark” though,’ said I. ‘Here we are with a programme of rambles that threatens the world’s end if we don’t fall in with the Colonel. Keep your heart up,’ said I gently. ‘What have you to fear? It is for the galled jade to wince. Why t’other night you would have shot Hope-Kennedy had he stood up before you.’ She tried to smile, but the movement of her lips swiftly faded out into their expression of grief and consternation. ‘I will play my part,’ she exclaimed, twisting her ring upon her finger. ‘If my sister refuses to leave Colonel Hope-Kennedy I have made up my mind not to leave _her_. Where she goes I’ll go.’ ‘I hope not,’ I interrupted, ‘for it might come, Miss Jennings, to my saying that where you go _I’ll_ go, and the Colonel may have rather curious views on the subject of guests.’ ‘You said you were too excited to talk,’ she exclaimed with a little colour mounting. ‘It may be that I am stupidly influenced by old memories. I was always afraid of Henrietta. She had an imperious manner, and an old lord whom I met at your cousin’s--I forget his name--told Wilfrid that her eyes made him think of Mrs. Siddons in her finest scenes. I fear her influence upon me when I begin to entreat her. I know how she will look.’ ‘All this is mere nervousness,’ said I. ‘You thought of these things before, yet you are here. Besides, the sense of wrong-doing will mightily weaken the genius of wizardry in her--her power at least of exercising it and subduing by it--subduing even you, the tenderest and gentlest of girls; or depend on’t she’s no true member of your sex, but one of those demon-women whom Coleridge describes as wailing for their, or rather in her case for _new_, lovers.’ She made no reply. Shortly afterwards the breakfast bell summoned us below.