In the days that followed, Hertford became more completely absorbed in watching this young girl, and wondering and imagining about her, than he had ever been in anything in his life. He never saw her except at a distance, and even then he guarded his looks carefully. The two ladies seemed to have no acquaintances on board, and if they had had, it would have done him no good, for he knew no one to introduce him. Besides, he was not sure he wanted to be introduced. There was more room for the indulgence of dreams as things were now. And he did indulge himself in dreams, without restriction. The more he saw of the beautiful young creature, the more adorable she seemed to him. He never met her suddenly, or even caught sight of her red cloak at a distance, that he did not feel a sudden stilling of his heartbeats, followed by thick throbbings that made his next few breaths difficult. Sometimes he would meet her taking exercise on the deck with her aunt, and sometimes she was on the arm of a French maid. Hertford noticed that when the latter was her companion she had generally a gayer and freer air, and he could see that there were the kindest feelings of sympathy and good-will between the two, in spite of their different spheres of life. The woman did not look as if she could have answered to the name of “Minion,” in this companionship! When, however, the young girl was with her aunt, Hertford often saw a look of constraint, and even sadness, on her face. This set him to conjecturing, and gave him a fear that she might be dependent upon this rich and exacting relative, and perhaps a victim to her tyrannies and caprices. The mere suggestion of it stirred in his heart depths of tenderness whose very existence was a surprise to him. One afternoon, during the last days of the voyage, Hertford had been sitting a long time silently thinking. His thoughts were always on one subject now--the girl who, at this moment, sat in one of the long row of chairs, made fast against the rolling of the vessel. There were, perhaps, half a dozen people between them, but, although he had not looked toward her since he sat down, he had no consciousness of any human existence about him but hers. He felt, moreover, in his inmost soul, that she had a consciousness of him. He was sure that an electric current of sympathy communicated from his heart to hers. There was nothing whatever external to encourage him in his belief--not a look nor a sign, but it was a thing stronger than either. And whenever he did meet her eyes, which was rarely, what was it that gave him that inevitable little shock, if it were not a meeting of such currents? Of course, his might be the positive and hers the negative, but he absolutely believed she felt it, too.