The news of the intended journey made Everard wild with delight, for, with the ocean between them, he felt that he should almost be free again; and he sent her a hundred dollars, and told her he hoped she would enjoy herself, and then, intoxicated with what seemed to him like his freedom, went up to see Rosamond, and staid with her until the clock was striking ten, and Mrs. Markham came into the room to break up the _tete-a-tete_. It was the last day of August that the _Nova Zembla_ sailed out of the harbor of Boston with Josephine on board, her fair hands waving kisses and adieux to the two men on the shore, watching her so intently,—young Gerard and old Captain Sparks, who had followed her to the very last, each vieing with the other in the size and cost of the bouquets, which filled one entire half of a table in the dining saloon, and stamped as somebody the beautiful girl who paraded them rather ostentatiously before her fellow-passengers. For two days they adorned the table at which she sat, and filled the saloon with perfume, and were examined and talked about, and she was pointed out as that young lady who had so many large and elegant bouquets; and then, the third day out, when their beauty and perfume were gone, they were thrown overboard by the cabin-boy, and a great wave came and carried them far out to sea, while Josey lay in her berth limp, wretched and helpless, with no thought of flowers, or Gerard, or Captain Sparks, but with a feeling of genuine longing for the mother and Agnes, whose care and ministrations she missed so much in her miserable condition. CHAPTER XXVII. EVENTS OF ONE YEAR AT THE FORREST HOUSE. It was near the last of October when Bee returned to Rothsay, where Everard greeted her gladly as one who could understand, and sympathize with him. It had come to him at last like a shock that he loved Rosamond Hastings as he had never loved Josephine, even in the days of his wildest infatuation; and far different from that first feverish, unhealthy passion of his boyhood was this mightier love of his maturer manhood, which threatened at last to master him so completely that he determined at last to go away from Rothsay for a month, and, amid the wilds of California and the rocky dells of Oregon try to forget the girl whom to love was sin. To Beatrice he confessed everything, and rebelled hotly against the bar which kept him from his love. He had thought of divorce, he said. He could easily obtain one under the circumstances, but he was sure Rossie would never believe in any divorce which was not sanctioned by the Bible. He had assumed a case similar to his own, which he pretended was pending in the court, and warmly espousing the husband’s cause, had asked Rosamond if she did not think it perfectly right for the man to marry again. And she had answered decidedly: