One night Lilian’s mother had gone below, John had followed, and they were long since folded in their quiet dreams; and Lilian, unable to sleep, had at last arisen and thrown on some garments, and wrapping a great cloak about her, had stolen on deck.  The person still pacing the deck, who saw her ascend and flit along with her fair hair streaming over her white cloak and her face shining white in the starlight, might have taken her for a spirit.  But he was not the kind of man that believes in spirits.  He went and leaned with her as she leaned over the vessel’s edge, and watched the glittering rent they made in the water.  They were side by side:  now and then the wind blew the silken ends of her hair across his cheek, and his hand lay over hers as it rested on the rail; now and then they looked at one another; now and then they spoke.

“Are you happy, Lilian?” he said.

“Oh, perfectly!” she answered him.

As she said it there was an outcry, a sudden lurch of the vessel, a flapping of the sails and ropes, and a vast shadow swept by them, the hull of a huge steamer, so near that they could almost have touched it with an outstretched hand.  But as it ploughed its way on and left them unharmed and rocking on its great waves, Reyburn released her from the arm he had flung about her in the moment’s dismay—­the arm that had never folded her before, that never did again.

“Oh no! no!” sighed Lilian with a shiver as she quickly drew away—­“not perfectly, oh not perfectly!  That is impossible here, where that black death can at any moment extinguish all our light.”

“Be still! be still!” said Reyburn.  “Why do you speak of it?” he cried roughly.  “Isn’t it enough to know that some day it must come?—­

  “The iron hand that breaks our band,
    It breaks my bliss—­it breaks my heart!”

He left her side in a sudden agitation a moment, and walked the deck again; and before he turned about Lilian had slipped below.

The next afternoon the Beachbird anchored within sight of shore and outside a long low reef where they saw a palm-plume tossing, and a boat came off, bringing Helen and her father.

John, who had begun at last to find his sea-legs, stood as eager and impatient to welcome the new-comers, while every dip of the shining oars lessened the distance between them, as if the cruise were just beginning; but Lilian, in the evening shadow behind him, knew that her share in the cruise was over.

“Is it the fierce and farouche duenna who wanted to annihilate me so when I bade you adieu one night?” asked Reyburn, taking Lilian upon his arm for a promenade upon the deck while they waited.  “Let me see:  she was very young, was she not, and tall, and ugly?  Is it her destiny to watch over you?  If she proves herself disagreeable, I will rig a buoy and drop her overboard.  After all, she is only a child.  Ah no,” he said, half under his breath, “the end is not yet.”