When they left the chapel, he was gone; gone back, so said some negroes lounging in the neighbourhood, to the other Jesuits at Maria-Galante. They believed him to be a priest of that order, resident at their plantation, who had simply come across the island, and returned in the regular performance of his duty. They cheered him when he emerged from a side door and departed swiftly through their ranks. They cheered the bridal party a few minutes later, leaving the chapel to re-embark. They even cheered the Marquise, when, after bidding them farewell, she separated from the others, and sought a house in the town, where Célandine had already collected several faithful slaves who could be trusted to defend her, and in the cellars of which refuge the Italian overseer was even then concealed. They cheered Slap-Jack more than any one, turning round to curse them, not without blows, for crowding in too close. Lighthearted and impressionable, they were delighted with the glitter, the bustle, the parade of the whole business, and thought it little inferior to the “bobbery” of the preceding night. So Cerise and her husband embarked on board the brigantine without delay. In less than an hour the anchor was up, and with a following tide and a wind off shore, ‘The Bashful Maid’ stood out to sea, carrying at least two happy hearts along with her, whatever she may have left behind. Before sunset she was hull-down on the horizon, but long after white sails vanished their last gleam seemed yet to linger on the eyes of two sad, wistful watchers, for whom, henceforth, it was to be a gloomier world. They knew not each other’s faces, they never guessed each other’s feelings, nor imagined how close a link between the two existed in that sunny speck, fading to leeward on the deep blue sea. None the less longingly did they gaze eastward; none the less keenly did the Marquise de Montmirail and Florian de St. Croix feel that their loves, their hopes, their better selves-all that brightened the future, that enhanced the past, that made life endurable—was gone from them in the Homeward Bound. CHAPTER XLI LADY HAMILTON The daisies we string in chains before ten, we tread under foot without compunction after twenty. Cerise, pacing a noble terrace rolled and levelled beneath the windows of her husband’s home, gave no thought to the humble petals bending to her light footfall, and rising again when it passed on; gave no thought to the flaring hollyhocks, the crimson roses, all the bright array of autumn’s gaudier flowers flaunting about her in the imposing splendour of maturity; gave no thought even to the fair expanse of moor and meadow, dale and dingle, copse and corn-field, wood, wold, and water, on which her eyes were bent.