It was a natural invitation, and yet it revealed in a moment the hollowness of the apparent reconciliation between them. What chance of mutual confidence could there be between these two? He asked Wenna if she had been busy in his absence; and the thought immediately occurred to him that she had had at least sufficient leisure to go walking about with young Trelyon. He asked her about the sewing club, and she stumbled into the admission that Mr. Trelyon had presented that association with six sewing-machines. Always Trelyon, always the recurrence of that uneasy consciousness of past events which divided these two as completely as the Atlantic had done! It was a strange meeting after that long absence. "It is a curious thing," he said rather desperately, "how marriage makes a husband and wife sure of each other. Anxiety is all over then. We have near us, out in Jamaica, several men whose wives and families are here in England, and they accept their exile there as an ordinary commercial necessity. But then they put their whole minds into their work, for they know that when they return to England they will find their wives and families just as they left them. Of course, in the majority of cases the married men there have taken their wives out with them. Do you fear a long sea-voyage, Wenna?" "I don't know," she said rather startled. "You ought to be a good sailor, you know." She said nothing to that: she was looking down, dreading what was coming. "I am sure you must be a good sailor. I have heard of many of your boating adventures. Weren't you rather fond, some years ago, of going out at night with the Lundy pilots?" "I have never gone a long voyage in a large vessel," Wenna said rather faintly. "But if there was any reasonable object to be gained an ordinary sea-voyage would not frighten you?" "Perhaps not." "And they have really very good steamers going to the West Indies." "Oh, indeed!" "First rate! You get a most comfortable cabin." "I thought you rather--in your description of it--in your first letter--" "Oh," said he, hurriedly and lightly (for he had been claiming sympathy on account of the discomfort of his voyage out), "perhaps I made a little too much of that. Besides, I did not make a proper choice in time. One gains experience in such matters. Now, if you were going out to Jamaica, I should see that you had every comfort." "But you don't wish me to go out to Jamaica?" she said, almost retreating from him.