Many torches, now, in the hands of inquisitive voyagers, were throwing lurid streaks of flame across the gloom. Their light fell full upon Eleanor, revealing to the poet a realization of his dream. In all the rich colors of his limitless fancy he had pictured her often to himself since the night of their flight from London Bridge. The picture now was corporate, and Fancy inadequate before the Real. The many proffers of assistance, the come and go of hasty figures, the general commotion and curiosity were lost to Marlowe’s heed. At last, when the by-standers had separated, he approached her, and, speaking her name, bowed low. As though awaking from a deep reverie, she turned, and gradually recognition came into her eyes. “Ah, Master Marlowe, it is you; I had not thought to see you again so soon.” “How so, Mistress Dare; did I not tell you I might come?” “Yes; now I remember you hinted that, if in the morning the wind blew west, you would follow it. The responsibility of decision was too great for you.” “Perhaps; moreover, there is much wisdom, methinks, in leaving our destiny to the wind, for the human heart is no less fickle and wayward in its guidance of our steps, and following that, we blame ourselves, yet who would arraign the breeze as purposeless and false?” She made no answer at first, but looked off across the stretch of water, now growing wider between them and the _Admiral_. “I trust,” she said at length, half to herself, “that we shall have no cause to complain against the breeze. ’Twas but last night I thought a storm menaced our advance. Ah, well, ’tis a hazardous voyage at best. I wonder that you, who were not forced to come, should court so many perils.” “Not forced,” he said, lowering his voice; “what, then, is force? Ay, madam, ’tis force and the hazard bring me here. The very peril compels me.” He sought to hold her glance, but could not, for again she was looking off to the larger ship. “You consider the risk so grave, then?” she queried, with a troubled air. “The gravest, madam,” he answered, a look of reckless pleasure crossing his face; “with glittering danger so woven through the warp and woof of future days as to seduce a man’s best wisdom and seem a golden fleece. We court the danger for the danger’s sake.” His words came as an undertone to her thoughts, disturbing, but not breaking, abstraction, until suddenly, as if with an impulse, he questioned her. “I would fain ask you, Mistress Dare, concerning your departure that night from Southwark, and your friend in the barge, a man—” he broke off, for he had put the question with no need of further inquiry.