"In truth he must," her old nurse and attendant from the first would say; "he must indeed, deary." "And, receiving it, would come. Surely he would come, Rebecca," addressing the woman now, as most often she did, by her Christian name. "I think so, dear heart; that is, if the frigate ain't----" "Sailed! Oh, my God!" Ariadne cried, "if it has done that! If it has gone to join Admiral Boscawen's fleet in the West Indies. If it has done that! Then--then my heart is broken." "P'r'aps, it ain't sailed after all. Don't weep, sweet one. P'r'aps it ain't. Look at that vane out there on the Abbey. The wind is west--doo west. He won't get out o' the Channel ag'in that, let alone off to the Injies. I remember when we were going in the _R'yal Suverin_----" "If he would only come. Only come once--for an hour--half an hour--so--so--that I could make all clear to him. Could sue to him for pardon and for pity." "Humph!" Mrs. Pottle exclaimed, with a snort, "he ain't got so very much to pardon nor to pity, I don't think. Pardon and pity! Hoity-toity! You've writ him, ain't you?" "Ay, indeed I have! Yet I could not tell him all then--could not do so until he stands here before me. Oh! Rebecca, Rebecca, what have I done! What have we done!" "Done what we oughter. That is, I have; what I agreed to do, if things turn out well. You ain't done nothin' as you oughtn't to do, and 'ave been an angel, as you always was. And cheer up, missy, he'll come; I know as how he will." "I pray God," Ariadne said again, "I pray God he will." A few days before this conversation took place, the girl, after considerable communing with herself, had despatched a letter addressed to Captain Sir Geoffrey Barry on board H.M.S. _Mignonne_ at Portsmouth; a letter cold in tone, it is true, and one in which there was no acknowledgment, as well as no denial, of her having been false to him, or of her having received a visit from the person whom he had encountered in the lime-tree avenue of her estate. For neither, she knew, would weigh anything with him--he would disbelieve her denial, while, on the other hand, her confession that such was the case would prevent him from ever speaking to her again. And she so much desired to see him before to-morrow; to see him before he sailed, as she had heard he was about to do, to join Admiral Boscawen's squadron.