“Going on, miss?” he asked.

“Oh, yes!” I answered, shrinking back into my corner-seat.  He remained upon the step, with his arm over the window-frame, while the train moved on at a slackened pace for a few minutes, and then pulled up, but at no station.  Before me lay a dim, dark, indistinct scene, with little specks of light twinkling here and there in the night, but whether on sea or shore I could not tell.  Immediately opposite the train stood the black hulls and masts and funnels of two steamers, with a glimmer of lanterns on their decks, and up and down their shrouds.  The porter opened the door for me.

“You’ve only to go on board, miss,” he said, “your luggage will be seen to all right.”  And he hurried away to open the doors of the other carriages.

I stood still, utterly bewildered, for a minute or two, with the wind tossing my hair about, and the rain beating in sharp, stinging drops like hailstones upon my face and hands.  It must have been close upon midnight, and there was no light but the dim, glow-worm glimmer of the lanterns on deck.  Every one was hurrying past me.  I began almost to repent of the desperate step I had taken; but I had learned already that there is no possibility of retracing one’s steps.  At the gangways of the two vessels there were men shouting hoarsely.  “This way for the Channel Islands!” “This way for Havre and Paris!” To which boat should I trust myself and my fate?  There was nothing to guide me.  Yet once more that night the moment had come when I was compelled to make a prompt, decisive, urgent choice.  It was almost a question of life and death to me:  a leap in the dark that must be taken.  My great terror was lest my place of refuge should be discovered, and I be forced back again.  Where was I to go?  To Paris, or to the Channel Islands?

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

A rough night at sea.

A mere accident decided it.  Near the fore-part of the train I saw the broad, tall figure of my new friend, the seaman, making his way across to the boat for the Channel Islands; and almost involuntarily I made up my mind to go on board the same steamer, for I had an instinctive feeling that he would prove a real friend, if I had need of one.  He did not see me following; no doubt he supposed I had left the train at Southampton, having only taken my ticket so far; though how I had missed Southampton I could not tell.  The deck was wet and slippery, and the confusion upon it was very great.  I was too much at home upon a steamer to need any directions; and I went down immediately into the ladies’ cabin, which was almost empty, and chose a berth for myself in the darkest corner.  It was not far from the door, and presently two other ladies came down, with a gentleman and the captain, and held an anxious parley close to me.  I listened absently and mechanically, as indifferent to the subject as if it could be of no consequence to me.