Aboard the great steamer the passengers were rushing to and fro, searching for their state-rooms, and, when found, depositing their impedimenta on the tops of the narrow white bunks. Cornelia walked to the quietest corner of the deck, dropped her bag on a seat, and leant idly over the rail. She was in no hurry to go below, and held instinctively aloof from the groups of fellow-passengers and their friends. She was alone, and her heart was sad. Someone walking quickly along the deck caught sight of the solitary figure in the trim, dark-blue dress, and recognised its outline before a turn of the head revealed the glorious, flaming hair. Someone with a grim face, pale beneath his tan, with haggard lines about the eyes and mouth; a man whose looks betrayed the fact that he had been awake all night, face to face with calamity. He walked straight to the girl's side, and laid his hand upon her arm. "Cornelia!" Cornelia turned swiftly, and a light leapt into her eyes; a light of joy, so pure and involuntary that, at sight of it, the man's face lost something of its grim tension. He turned his back so as to screen the girl from the passers-by, and his hand tightened on her arm. "Cornelia, are you running away from me?" She did not answer, but her silence gave assent--her silence, and a quiet bend of the head. "Why?" "I was--afraid!" breathed Cornelia, low. Beneath the close-fitting cap Guest could see her lips tremble. The little face looked white and tense. She twisted her fingers nervously. "Afraid of me, and my love? Afraid that I should come back to trouble you? Afraid of my selfishness, Cornelia?" The curling lips breathed a faint dissent. "Of what, then? We have only a few minutes left. You must tell me the truth now!" She raised her eyes to his; brave, pitiful eyes, mutely imploring for mercy. "Of myself! Of my own weakness! Afraid lest I might give way, and ruin two lives!" "You knew that I loved you; that I had gone away to prove my love, to see if it would stand the test of absence? It was a serious matter for us both, and I would not let myself act on the spur of an impulse. If I had, Cornelia, you know that I should have spoken long ago!--that night on the river. You knew it at the time. I saw it in your eyes.--I made you promise to let me know if you left Norton during my absence. It was not fair to run away." "I never promised! I never did! You asked me, but I didn't promise. I felt at the time that I must leave." The words came in quick, gasping breaths, as a child might speak who tried to justify himself to his taskmaster. Guest's face softened at the sound, and his grasp of the girl's arm turned into a caress.