Indeed, there was need that things should be well for John Saltram very speedily.  He had set nature at defiance so far, acting as if physical weakness were unknown to him.  There are periods in a man’s life in which nothing seems impossible to him; in which by the mere force of will he triumphs over impossibility.  But such conquests are apt to be of the briefest.  John Saltram felt that he must very soon break down.  The heavily throbbing heart, the aching limbs, the dizzy sight, and parched throat, told him how much this desperate chase had cost him.  If he had strength enough to clasp his wife’s hand, to give her loving greeting and tell her that he was true, it would be about as much as he could hope to achieve; and then he felt that he would be glad to crawl into any corner of the vessel where he might find rest.

The stewardess came back to him presently, with rather a discomfited air.

“The lady says she is too ill to see any one, sir,” she told John Saltram; “but under any circumstances she must decline to see you.”

“She said that—­my wife told you that?”

“Your wife, sir!  Good gracious me, is the lady in number 7 your wife?  She came on board with her father, and I understood they were only two in party.”

“Yes; she came with her father.  Her father’s treachery has separated her from me; but a few words would explain everything, if I could only see her.”

He thought it best to tell the woman the truth, strange as it might seem to her.  Her sympathies were more likely to be enlisted in his favour if she knew the actual state of the case.

“Did Mrs. Holbrook positively decline to see me?” he asked again, scarcely able to believe that Marian could have resisted even that brief appeal scrawled upon a scrap of paper.

“She did indeed, sir,” answered the stewardess.  “Nothing could be more positive than her manner.  I told her how anxious you seemed—­for I could see it in your face, you see, sir, when you gave me the paper—­and I really didn’t like to bring you such a message; but it was no use.  ’I decline to see him,’ the lady said, ’and be sure you bring me no more messages from this gentleman;’ and with that, sir, she tore up the bit of paper, as cool as could be.  But, dear me, sir, how ill you do look, to be sure!”

“I have been very ill.  I came from a sick-room to follow my wife.”

“Hadn’t you better go and lie down a little, sir?  You look as if you could scarcely stand.  Shall I fetch the steward for you?”

“No, thanks.  I can find my way to my berth, I daresay.  Yes, I suppose I had better go and lie down.  I can do no more yet awhile.”