“I mean,” his aunt replied, “that Bessie is not dead.  I have seen her.  I have spoken with her.  She is on the ship.  She is in my state-room, waiting for you.  She is the sick girl I told you about.”

Grey made an effort to spring from his chair, but had not the power to do so.  The shock had been too great, and he sank back half fainting, whispering as he did so: 

“Tell me everything—­now—­at once.  It will not harm me; joy seldom kills.  Tell me the whole.”

So she told him all she knew, and the particulars of her finding Bessie among the steerage passengers, and having her removed to her room.

“Yes, I see—­I understand how the mistake occurred.”  Grey said.  “But why did not Neil tell me he had been to see her off?”

“He was probably ashamed to let you know that she was in the steerage.  He hoped you would not find her,” Miss Grey replied; and Grey exclaimed: 

“The coward!  If it were not wrong, I should have him;” while a fierce pang shot through his heart that Bessie was bound to Neil, and that, though living, she was no nearer to him than if she were dead and in that grave by which he had so lately stood.

Still it would be something to see her again, to hear her voice, to look into her eyes, and have her all to himself for the remainder of the voyage, which he now wished had just commenced.

“Thank God she lives, even though she does not live for me,” he said to himself; and then, at his aunt’s suggestion, he tried to control his nerves and bring himself into a quieter, calmer condition before going down to see her.

It was nearly an hour before he felt himself strong enough to do it, and when at last he reached the narrow passage, and knew there was but a step between him and Bessie, he trembled so that his aunt was obliged to support him as he steadied himself against the door of the state-room.  Glancing in for an instant, Miss Grey put her finger upon her lip, saying to him: 

“She is asleep; sit quietly down till she wakens.”

There was a buzzing in Grey’s ears and a blur before his eyes, so that he did not at once see distinctly the face which lay upon the pillow resting on one hand, with the bright hair clinging about the neck and brow.  Bessie had fallen asleep while waiting for him, and there was a smile upon her lips and a flush upon her cheek, which made her more like the Bessie he knew at Stoneleigh than like the white-faced girl he had left in Rome, and whom he had never thought to see again.

“It is Bessie and she is alive,” he said, under his breath, and bending over her he softly kissed her forehead saying as he did so, “My darling! just for the moment mine, if Neil’s by and by.”

For an instant Bessie moved uneasily, then slept again, while Grey watched her with a great hunger in his heart and a longing to take her in his arms, and, in spite of a hundred Neils, tell her of his love.  How beautiful she was in that calm sleep, and Grey noted every point of beauty, from the sheen of her golden hair to the dimpled hand which was just within his reach.