“Slander and lies are very strong,” John Saltram said to himself; “but I do not think, when my dear love and I are once face to face, any power on earth can prevail against me.  She must be changed indeed, if it can; she must be changed indeed, if anything but a lie can part us.”

He had come on board the Oronoco prepared for the worst, and furnished with a slender outfit for the voyage, hurriedly purchased at a Liverpool clothier’s.  He had plenty of money in his pocket—­enough to pay for his own and his wife’s return passage; and the thought of this useless journey across the Atlantic troubled him very little.  What did it matter where he was, if she were with him?  The mental torture he had undergone during all this time, in which he had seemed in danger of losing her altogether, had taught him how dear she was—­how precious and perfect a treasure he had held so lightly.

The vessel steamed put of the Mersey, and John Saltram, indifferent to the last glimpse of his native land, was still roaming hither and thither, in quest of the familiar face he longed with such a passionate yearning to see; but up to this point he sought for his wife in vain.  Mrs. Holbrook had evidently retired at once to her cabin.  There was nothing for him to do but to establish a channel of communication with her by means of the stewardess.

He found this official with some trouble, and so desperately busy that it was no easy matter to obtain speech with her, pursued as she was by forlorn and distracted female passengers, clamorously eager to know where she had put that “waterproof cloak,” or “Maud,” or “travelling-bag,” or “dressing-case.”  He did at last contrive to enlist her services in his behalf, and extort some answer to his questions.

“Yes,” she told him, “Mrs. Holbrook was on board—­state-room number 7.  She had gone to her room at once, but would appear at dinner-time, no doubt, if she wasn’t ill.”

John Saltram tore a blank leaf from his pocket-book, and wrote one hasty line: 

    “I am here, Marian; let me see you for God’s sake.

    “JOHN HOLBROOK.”

“If you’ll take that to the lady in number 7, I shall be exceedingly obliged,” he said to the stewardess, slipping half-a-crown into her willing hand at the same time.

“Yes, sir, this very minute, sir.”

John Saltram sat down upon a bench outside the ladies’ cabin, in a sort of antechamber between the steward’s pantry and store-rooms, strongly perfumed with the odour of grocery, and waited for Marian’s coming.  He had no shadow of doubt that she would come to him instantly, in defiance of any other guardian or counseller.  Whatever lies might have been told her—­however she might have been taught to doubt him—­he had a perfect faith in the power of his immediate presence.  They had but to meet face to face, and all would be well.