The Scotia was within a few hours of Liverpool. The passengers were all gathered on deck--the women, eager and garrulous, eying each other a little curiously in their new costumes--even the most _blasé_ traveller among them roused by the smell of land. Miss Fleming, however, sat quietly apart, with Mr. Neckart beside her. The other passengers were accustomed to see these two together, silent and uncommunicative even to each other. Cornelia had early understood that Neckart's ailment, whatever it was, whether mood or disease, craved quiet. She instantly suited herself to its need. Captain Swendon had always rejoiced in her as one of the most loquacious and sociable of human beings. Bruce, on the contrary, was strongly attracted by the aloofness and unconscious repose of this taciturn woman, who held herself apart from the vulgarly fashionable crowd in the cabins, not being of their kind. He fell into the habit of taking his seat near her, partly to avoid the others, partly for the comfort of being able to sleep, talk, or be silent undisturbed. After a few days he began to be conscious of a fine similarity of taste and convictions between them. Whether it was a question of political law or the color of a curling wave, Cornelia's thought about it evidently ran in the same groove as his own, though more weakly, as became the intellect of a woman. A word or a laughing glance was enough to convey this subtle sympathy between them. It had undeniably soothed and brightened the passage. Bruce Neckart, at night, alone in his state-room, knew that he had left ambition, love, happiness, behind him--that he was cut off from all the chances of life. At night the indescribable feeling of vacancy at the base of the brain, the stricture as of an iron band about his jaws, the occasional sudden numbness of nerve and thought, as though he were stricken for the instant with extreme old age, were hints which brought his approaching fate before him as with a horror of great darkness. But on deck, in daylight, the swell lapping the vessel, his feeble appetite gratified by a well-cooked meal, there was some interest yet to be found in the Southern problem or the claims of the Pre-Raphaelites; and he was grateful to Chance for this companion who sat ready to grasp any subject which attracted him, with a woman's fine intuition, but who demanded only the personal courtesy due to an innocent, manly boy. She showed him, too, during the voyage, much womanly, personal kindness, for which, being of an honest, affectionate nature, he was grateful.