“I must have rest, I tell you!  I am beginning—­I can confess all to you—­to want stimulants.  I am beginning to long for brandy and water—­pah!—­to nerve me up to the excitement of acting, and then for morphine to make me sleep after it.  The very eau de Cologne flask tempts me!  They say that the fine ladies use it, before a ball, for other purposes than scent.  You would not like to see me commence that practice, would you?”

“There is no fear, dear.”

“There is fear!  You do not know the craving for exhilaration, the capability of self-indulgence, in our wild Tropic blood.  Oh, Sabina, I feel at times that I could sink so low—­that I could be so wicked, so utterly wicked, if I once began!  Take me away, dearest creature, take me away, and let me have fresh air, and fair quiet scenes, and rest—­rest—­oh, save me, Sabina!” and she put her hands over her face, and burst into tears.

“We will go, then:  to the Rhine, shall it be?  I have not been there now for these three years, and it will be such fun running about the world by myself once more, and knowing all the while that—­” and Sabina stopped; she did not like to remind Marie of the painful contrast between them.

“To the Rhine?  Yes.  And I shall see the beautiful old world, the old vineyards, and castles, and hills, which he used to tell me of—­taught me to read of in those sweet, sweet books of Longfellow’s!  So gentle, and pure, and calm—­so unlike me!”

“Yes, we will see them; and perhaps—­”

Marie looked up at her, guessing her thoughts, and blushed scarlet.

“You, too, think then, that—­that—­” she could not finish her sentence.

Sabina stooped over her, and the two beautiful mouths met.

“There, darling, we need say nothing.  We are both women, and can talk without words.”

“Then you think there is hope!”

“Hope?  Do you fancy that he is gone so very far? or that if he were, I could not hunt him out?  Have I wandered half round the world alone for nothing?”

“No, but hope—­hope that—­”

“Not hope, but certainty; if some one I know had but courage.”

“Courage—­to do what!”

“To trust him utterly.”

Marie covered her face with her hands, and shuddered in every limb.

“You know my story.  Did I gain or lose by telling my Claude all?”

“I will!” she cried, looking up pale but firm.  “I will!” and she looked steadfastly into the mirror over the chimney-piece, as if trying to court the reappearance of that ugly vision which haunted it, and so to nerve herself to the utmost, and face the whole truth.

In little more than a fortnight, Sabina and Marie, with maid and courier (for Marie was rich now), were away in the old Antwerpen.  And Claude was rolling down to Southampton by rail, with Campbell, Scoutbush, and last, but not least, the faithful Bowie; who had under his charge what he described to the puzzled railway-guard as “goads and cleiks, and pirns and creels, and beuks and heuks, enough for a’ the cods o’ Neufundland.”