"But you will bring him to me quickly, or they will set me ashore," wailed Hester, clinging tightly to her companion as she uttered a sigh of relief. "If I could but stay only to see him sometimes, and know that he was safe, I should wait then patiently until he came to me and told me that all this dreadful dream was at an end." "And you believe that he will do this?" "Believe!" cried Hester, starting up, and gazing full at her companion. "Oh, yes, I believe it. It may be long first, but the time will come, and I can wait--I can wait--I can wait." She sank back quite exhausted as she repeated the last words again and again in a whisper, the last time almost inaudibly; and then, holding Bessy Studwick's hand tightly clasped to her bosom, her eyes closed, and she sank into the deep sleep of exhaustion, the first sleep that had visited the weary woman for three nights; while, as the light from the cabin lamp fell athwart her pretty troubled face, Bessy knelt there watching her, passing her soft white hand across the forehead to sweep away the tangled locks. Then as the time wore on, and the rippling, plashing noise of the water against the ship grew louder, and the footsteps on the deck less frequent, she listened for the catching sighs that escaped at intervals from the sleeping young wife's lips, her own tears stealing gently down from time to time, as Hester murmured more than once the name of which she had herself loved to dream. "Poor Dutch! and he might have felt the same trouble, perhaps about me," thought Bessy, as she bent over and kissed Hester's cheek, to feel the sleeping woman's arms steal round her neck for a moment, and then glide softly down again. "No, no, it could not be true," she whispered again, as she knelt there watching hour after hour for Hester to awake, till her own head sank lower and lower, and at last she fell asleep by the suffering woman's side. STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWELVE. THE DOCTOR'S DECREE. As the morning broke bright and clear, the large three-masted schooner was running down the Channel under easy sail, and the men were beginning to fall into their places, though all was at present rather awkward and strange. Captain Studwick and Mr Parkley had gone below, congratulating themselves on having succeeded so far, and placed themselves out of the reach of Laure's machinations, while Mr Jones, the mate, had taken charge, and was now pacing the deck in company with Dutch, who was trying hard to master his pain by throwing his whole soul into the adventure. In spite of himself, though, a little suffering face constantly presented itself before him; and again and again he found his conscience smiting him, and charging him with cruelty in forsaking his wife--asking him, too, if he was sure that his suspicions were just.