CHAPTER VII.

ON THE SEA.

The Russia was steaming slowly up the harbor to her moorings on the Jersey side of the Hudson, and her upper deck was crowded with passengers, some straining their eyes to catch the first sight of familiar forms among the crowd waiting for them on shore, and others to whom every thing was strange, looking eagerly from side to side at the world so new to them. Standing apart from the rest, with her hands locked tightly together, her head thrown back, and a long blue vail twisted around her sailor hat, was a young girl with a figure so slight that at first you might have mistaken her for a child of fourteen, but when she turned more fully toward you, you would have seen that she was a girl of twenty summers or more, whose face you would look at once, and twice, and then comeback to study it again and wonder what there was in it to fascinate and charm you so. Beautiful in the strict sense of the word it was not, for if you dissected the features one by one there was much to find fault with. The forehead was low, the nose was short and inclined to an upward turn, as was the upper lip, and the complexion was dark, while the cheeks had lost something of their roundness during the passage, which, though made in summer, had not been altogether smooth and free from storm.

During the first three days Reinette had been very sick, and Pierre, her father’s attendant, had carried her on deck, and wrapped her in blankets and furs, and watched over and cared for her as if she had been a queen. Then, when the rain came dashing down and the great green waves broke over the lower deck, and she refused to return to the close cabin and said she liked to watch the ocean in a fury, because it made her think of herself in some of her moods, he staid by her and covered her with his own rubber cloak and held an umbrella over her head until the wind took it from him and turning it wrong side out, carried it far out to sea, where it rode like a feather on the waves, while Reinette laughed merrily to see it dance up and down until it was lost to sight. Others than Pierre were interested in and kind to the little French girl, whose father had kept his berth from the time he came on board at Liverpool.

It was whispered about that he was a millionaire, and that Reinette was his only child, and heiress of his vast fortune; and as such things go for a great deal on shipboard as well as elsewhere, this of itself was sufficient to interest the passengers in Reinette, who, as soon as she was able, danced about the ship like the merry, lighthearted creature she was, now jabbering with Pierre in his native tongue, and sometimes holding fierce altercations with him, now watching the sailors at their work, and not unfrequently joining her own clear, bird-like voice in the songs they sung, and again amusing some fretful, restless child, whose tired mother blessed her for the respite, and thought her the sweetest type of girlhood she had ever seen. Everybody liked her, and, after a little, everybody called her beautiful, she was so bright and sparkling, with the rich, warm color in her cheeks, her pretty little mouth always breaking out in exclamations of surprise or bursts of laughter, her long eyelashes and heavy brows, her black, wavy hair, which in some lights had in it a tinge of golden brown, as if it had been often kissed by the warm suns of Southern France, and, more than all, her large, dark, brilliant eyes which flashed upon you so suddenly and so swiftly as almost to blind and bewilder you with their brightness. Taken as a whole, Reinette Hetherton was a girl, who, once seen, could never be forgotten; she was so sunny, and sweet, and willful, and piquant, and charming every way; and the passengers on the Russia, who were mostly middle-aged people, petted, and admired, and sympathized with her, too, when, with the trace of tears in her beautiful eyes, she came from her father’s bedside and reported him no better.

For months his health had been failing, and he had hoped the sea voyage would restore him somewhat; but he was growing steadily worse, though as yet there was no shadow of fear in Reinette’s heart; she was only sad and sorry for him, and staid with him whenever he would let her. Generally, however, he would send her away after a few passionate hugs and kisses, and inquiries as to how he was feeling. She must get all the sea air she could, he said, for he wanted her to be bright and fresh when he presented her to his friends in America.

“Not that I have many friends there,” he said, smiling a little bitterly. “It has been so many years, and so much has happened, since I left home, that I doubt if any remember or care for me; but they will forgive me, perhaps, for the sake of you, my daughter,” and he stroked fondly the long silken curls which Reinette wore bound at the back of her head, and looked lovingly into the eyes meeting his so tenderly.

Then he sent her away, and turning in his narrow berth, thought again, as he had thought many times, of all the sin and evil doing he had heaped up against himself and others since the day he last saw his native land. Many and terribly bitter were the thoughts crowding his brain and filling him with remorse, as he lay there day after day, and knew that with each turn of the noisy screw he was nearing the home where there was not a friend to welcome him.

“But once there,” he said to himself, “once back in the old place, I’ll begin life anew. I’ll make friends even of my enemies for the sake of my darling; oh, Queenie, my child, there is so much I would undo for you—for you—to whom the greatest wrong of all has been done, and you so unconscious of it. Would you kiss me as you do? Would you love me as you do, if you knew all the dark past as I know it? Oh, my child! my child!” and, covering his face with his hands, the sick man sobbed aloud.

“If I live to get there,” was now the burden of his thoughts; but could he live he asked himself, as, day by day, he felt he was growing weaker, and counted the rapid heart-beats and saw the streaks of blood upon the napkin his faithful Pierre held to his lips after a paroxysm of coughing.

The desire for life was stronger within him now than it had been in years; but the candle was burned out; there was only the snuff remaining, and when at last the scent of the land breeze was borne through his open window, and Reinette came rushing in to tell him they were entering the harbor, and she had _seen_ America, he knew the hand of death was on him, and that the only shore he should ever reach would be the boundless shore of eternity, which was looming up so black before him. But he would let Reinette be happy as long as possible, and so he sent her from him, and then with a low moan, he cried:

“Pity me, oh, God! I have so much need to be forgiven.”

In his gayest, most reckless moods, with his skeptical companions round him jeering at all that was sacred and holy, he had said there was no God, that the Bible was only an old woman’s fable, but he had never quite believed it, and now, with death measuring his life by heart-beats, he knew there was a God and a hereafter by the stings of his own conscience, and the first prayer uttered in years fell from his white lips. Oh, how many and how great were the sins which came back to him as he thought of his wasted life, remembering his mother dead so long ago; his father, too, whose last words to him had been a curse; and the beautiful Margaret, whom for a short period he had loved with a love so impetuous that in a few short months it had burned itself out and left only poisonous ashes where the fierce passion had been. How gentle, and patient, and forgiving she was, and how basely he had requited her faithfulness and love.

“Oh, Margaret,” he whispered, “I am so sorry, and if I could undo the past I would.”

Then, as another phantom, darker, more terrible than all the others flitted before his mind, he shivered as with a chill, while the great drops of sweat came out upon his forehead, and the palms of his hands which he clasped so tightly together, were dripping with perspiration. And while he lay there alone suffering the torments of remorse he could hear the rapid movements of the sailors and the excited crowd on deck watching for the shore. And Reinette, he knew, was with them, looking eagerly upon the new world which recently he had tried to teach her to love as her future home.

“Home—America,” he murmured; “I must see it again!” and, regardless of consequences, he got out of his berth, and, tottering to his window, looked out upon the beautiful bay, and saw in the distance the city, which had grown so much since he last looked upon it.

But the exertion was too great for him, and, dizzy and faint, he crept back to his bed, where he lay unconscious for a moment; then rousing himself, and alarmed by the terrible feeling stealing over him so fast, he called aloud for Reinette.

The call was heard by Pierre, who was never far away, and who came at once, greatly alarmed by the pallor in his master’s face and the flecks of blood upon the lips and chin.

To go for Reinette was the work of an instant, and like a frightened deer, she bounded down the stairway to her father’s side, and in her impetuosity almost threw herself upon him. But he motioned her back, and whispered.

“Not so close; you take my breath away. Pierre,” he added faintly as his valet started for the physician, “don’t go for him; it’s too late now. I am dying; nothing can help me, and I must not be disturbed. I must be alone with Queenie. Stand outside till I call.”

The frightened Pierre obeyed, and then Reinette was alone with her dying father. She knew he was dying, but the awful suddenness stunned her so completely that she could only gaze at him in a stupefied kind of way, as his eyes were fixed so earnestly upon her.

“Little Queenie,” he said, using the pet name he always gave her, “kneel down beside me and hold my hands in yours while I tell you something I ought to have told you long ago.”

She obeyed, and, covering his cold hands with kisses, whispered:

“Yes, father, I am waiting.”

But if he heard, he did not answer at once; and when at last he spoke, it was with difficulty, and like one who labors for breath. His mind, too, seemed wandering, and he said:

“I can’t tell, but if it ever comes to you, promise you will forgive me. I have loved you so much, my darling oh, my darling, promise while I can hear you!”

“Yes, father, I promise,” Reinette replied, knowing nothing to what she pledged herself, thinking nothing except of the white face on the pillow, where the sign of death was written.

“Queenie, are you here?” the voice said again, and she replied, “Yes, father,” while he continued: “I meant to have told you when we reached New York, but cannot now, I am too weak. It is too late, forever too late. Oh Queenie—oh, Margaret, forgive!”

“Is it of mother you wish to tell me?” Reinette asked bending forward eagerly, and fixing her great dark eyes upon him.

“Your mother, child—your mother. Yes—no—don’t speak that name aloud. We’ve left _her_ way over there, or I thought we had. That’s why I was going home—to get away from it, and—if——Queenie, where are you? I can’t see you, child. You are surely here? You are listening?”

“Yes, yes, father, I am here. I am listening,” and the girl’s rigid face and fixed, wide-open eyes showed how intently she was listening.

“Yes, child, that’s right; listen so close that nobody else can hear. We are all alone?”

“Yes, father, all alone; only Pierre is outside, and he understands English so little. What is it, father? What are you going to tell me?”

There was silence for a moment, while Mr. Hetherton regarded his daughter fixedly, and with an expression in his eyes which made her uneasy and half afraid of him.

“What is it?” he said, at last. “I don’t know; it comes and goes, as she