She received Montesma with the faintest inclination of the head, and she carefully avoided all occasion of speech with him during the leisurely, long spun-out meal.  She was as white as her muslin gown, and her eyes told of a sleepless night.  She talked a little, very little to Lady Kirkbank and Mr. Smithson; to the Spaniard not at all.  And yet Montesma was in no manner dashed by this appearance of deep offence.  So might Francesca have looked the morning after that little scene over the book; yet she sacrificed her salvation for her lover all the same.  It was a familiar stage upon the journey which Montesma knew by heart.  Here the inclination of the road was so many degrees more or less; for this hill you are commanded to put on an extra horse; at this stage it is forbidden to go more than eight miles an hour, and so on, and so on.  Montesma knew every inch of the ground.  He put on a melancholy look, and talked very little.  He had been on deck all night, and so there was an excuse for his being quiet.

Lady Kirkbank related her impressions of the storm, and talked enough for four.  She had suffered the pangs of purgatory, but her natural cheeriness asserted itself, and she made no moaning about past agonies which had exercised a really delightful influence on her appetite.  Mr. Smithson also was cheerful.  He had paid his annual tribute to Neptune, and might hope to go scot-free for the rest of the season.

’If I had stayed on deck I must have had my finger in the pie; so I thought it better to go below and get a good night’s rest in the steward’s cabin,’ he said, not caring to confess his sufferings as frankly as Lady Kirkbank admitted hers.

After breakfast, which was prolonged till noon, Montesma asked Smithson to smoke a cigarette on deck with him.

‘I want to talk to you on a rather serious matter,’ he said.

Lesbia heard the words, and looked up with a frightened glance.  Could he mean to attempt anything desperate?  Was he going to confess the fatal truth to Horace Smithson, to tell her affianced lover that she was untrue to her bond, that she loved him, Montesma, as fondly as he loved her, that their two souls had mingled like two flames fanned by the same current, and thence had risen to a conflagration which must end in ruin, if she were not set free to follow where her heart had gone, free to belong to that man whom her spirit chose for lord and master.  Her heart leapt at the hope that Montesma was going to do this, that he was strong enough to break her bonds for her, powerful and rich enough to secure her a brilliant future.  Yet this last consideration, which hitherto had been paramount, seemed now of but little moment.  To be with him, to belong to him, would be enough for bliss.  Albeit that in such a choice she forfeited all that she had ever possessed or hoped for of earthly prosperity.  Adventurer, beggar, whatever he might be, she chose him, and loved him with all the strength of a weak soul newly awakened to passionate feeling.