I saw the dazzling spectacle, I saw the five hundred guests, I saw Alma and my husband, and above all I saw my father, the old man stricken with mortal maladies, the wounded lion whom the shadow of death itself could not subdue, degraded to the dust in his hour of pride by the act of his own child.

I heard his shouts of rage, his cries of fury, his imprecations on me as one who should never touch a farthing of his fortune.  And then I heard the whispering of his “friends,” who were telling the “true story” of my disappearance, the tale of my “treacheries” to my husband—­just as if Satan had willed it that the only result of the foolish fete on which my father had wasted his wealth like water should be the publication of my shame.

But the bitterest part of my experience was still to come.  In a few minutes we sailed past the headlands of Port Raa, the lights of my husband’s house shot out of view like meteors on a murky night, and the steamer turned her head to the open sea.

I was standing by a rope which crossed the bow and holding on to it to save myself from falling, for, being alone with Nature at last, I was seeing my flight for the first time in full light.

I was telling myself that as surely as my flight became known Martin’s name would be linked with mine, and the honour that was dearer to me than, my own would be buried in disgrace.

O God!  O God!  Why should Nature be so hard and cruel to a woman?  Why should it be permitted that, having done no worse than obey the purest impulses of my heart, the iron law of my sex should rise up to condemn both me and the one who was dearer to my soul than life itself?

I hardly know how long I stood there, holding on to that rope.  There was no sound now except the tread of a sailor in his heavy boots, an inarticulate call from the bridge, an answering shout from the wheel, the rattling of the wind in the rigging, the throbbing of the engine in the bowels of the ship, and the monotonous wash of the waves against her side.

Oh, how little I felt, how weak, how helpless!

I looked up towards the sky, but there seemed to be no sky, no moon, and no stars, only a vaporous blackness that came down and closed about me.

I looked out to the sea, but there seemed to be no sea, only a hissing splash of green spray where the steamer’s forward light fell on the water which her bow was pitching up, and beyond that nothing but a threatening and thundering void.

I did not weep, but I felt as other women had felt before me, as other women have felt since, as women must always feel after they have sinned against the world and the world’s law, that there was nothing before me but the blackness of night.

“Out of the depths I cry unto thee, O Lord.  Lord, hear my cry.”

But all at once a blessed thought came to me.  We were travelling eastward, and dark as the night was now, in a few hours the day would dawn, the sun would shine in our faces and the sky would smile over our heads!