There came two stewards, bearing with them pillows and blankets and rugs.  These articles were disposed to advantage in two steamer chairs.  Then the stewards hurried away; but presently they reappeared, dragging the limp and dangling forms of the bridal couple from the central part of Ohio.  But oh, my countrymen, what a spectacle!  And what a change from what had been!

The going-away gown was wrinkled, as though worn for a period of time by one suddenly and sorely stricken in the midst of health.  The bride’s once well-coifed hair hung in lank disarray about a face that was the color of prime old sage cheese—­yellow, with a fleck of green here and there—­and in her wan and rolling eye was the hunted look of one who hears something unpleasant stirring a long way off and fears it is coming this way.

Side by side the stewards stretched them prone on their chairs and tucked them in.  Her face was turned from him.  For some time both of them lay there without visible signs of life—­just two muffled, misery-stricken heaps.  Then, slowly and languidly, the youth stretched forth an arm from his wrappings and fingered the swaddling folds that enveloped the form of his beloved.

It may have been he thought it was about time to begin picking the coverlid, or it may have been the promptings of reawakened romance, once more feebly astir within his bosom.  At any rate, gently and softly, his hand fell on the rug about where her shoulder ought to be.  She still had life enough left in her to shake it off—­and she did.  Hurt, he waited a moment, then caressed her again.  “Stop that!” she cried in a low but venomous tone.  “Don’t you dare touch me!”

So he touched her no more, but only lay there mute and motionless; and from his look one might plumb the sorrows of his soul and know how shocked he was, and how grieved and heartstricken!  Love’s young dream was o’er!  He had thought she loved him, but now he knew better.  Their marriage had been a terrible mistake and he would give her back her freedom; he would give it back to her as soon as he was able to sit up.  Thus one interpreted his expression.

On the day we landed, however, they were seen again.  We were nosing northward through a dimpled duckpond of a sea, with the Welsh coast on one side and Ireland just over the way.  People who had not been seen during the voyage came up to breathe, wearing the air of persons who had just returned from the valley of the shadow and were mighty glad to be back; and with those others came our bridal couple.

I inadvertently stumbled on them in an obscure companionway.  Their cheeks again wore the bloom of youth and health, and they were in a tight clinch; it was indeed a pretty sight.  Love had returned on roseate pinions and the honeymoon had been resumed at the point where postponed on account of bad weather.