There had been a difficulty in getting him to go.  One day Cecilia walked down to Dr. Shrapnel’s with Mr. Tuckham, to communicate that the Esperanza awaited Captain Beauchamp, manned and provisioned, off the pier.  Now, he would not go without Dr. Shrapnel, nor the doctor without Jenny; and Jenny could not hold back, seeing that the wish of her heart was for Nevil to be at sea, untroubled by political questions and prowling Radical deputies.  So her consent was the seal of the voyage.  What she would not consent to, was the proposal to have her finger ringed previous to the voyage, altogether in the manner of a sailor’s bride.  She seemed to stipulate for a term of courtship.  Nevil frankly told the doctor that he was not equal to it; anything that was kind he was quite ready to say; and anything that was pretty:  but nothing particularly kind and pretty occurred to him:  he was exactly like a juvenile correspondent facing a blank sheet of letter paper:—­he really did not know what to say, further than the uncomplicated exposition of his case, that he wanted a wife and had found the very woman.  How, then, fathom Jenny’s mood for delaying?  Dr. Shrapnel’s exhortations were so worded as to induce her to comport herself like a Scriptural woman, humbly wakeful to the surpassing splendour of the high fortune which had befallen her in being so selected, and obedient at a sign.  But she was, it appeared that she was, a maid of scaly vision, not perceptive of the blessedness of her lot.  She could have been very little perceptive, for she did not understand his casual allusion to Beauchamp’s readiness to overcome ‘a natural repugnance,’ for the purpose of making her his wife.

Up to the last moment, before Cecilia Halkett left the deck of the Esperanza to step on the pier, Jenny remained in vague but excited expectation of something intervening to bring Cecilia and Beauchamp together.  It was not a hope; it was with pure suspense that she awaited the issue.  Cecilia was pale.  Beauchamp shook Mr. Tuckham by the hand, and said:  ‘I shall not hear the bells, but send me word of it, will you?’ and he wished them both all happiness.

The sails of the schooner filled.  On a fair frosty day, with a light wind ruffling from the North-west, she swept away, out of sight of Bevisham, and the island, into the Channel, to within view of the coast of France.  England once below the water-line, alone with Beauchamp and Dr. Shrapnel, Jenny Denham knew her fate.

As soon as that grew distinctly visible in shape and colour, she ceased to be reluctant.  All about her, in air and sea and unknown coast, was fresh and prompting.  And if she looked on Beauchamp, the thought—­my husband! palpitated, and destroyed and re-made her.  Rapidly she underwent her transformation from doubtfully-minded woman to woman awakening clear-eyed, and with new sweet shivers in her temperate blood, like the tremulous light seen running to the morn upon a quiet sea.  She fell under the charm of Beauchamp at sea.