“He declares his men mutinied, because instead of returning to New York, he had taken on a cargo for the East India Company; and that the blow was given him either by his first, or second mate.  He thinks they sailed his ship out of the Thames, for her papers were all made out, and she was ready to drop down the river with the next tide.  He vows he will get well and find his ship and the rascals that stole her; and I should not wonder if he does.  He has will enough for anything.  Madame desires to see you, Cornelia.  Can you go there with me in the morning?”

“I shall be glad to go.  Madame is like no one else.”

“She is not like herself at present.  I think you may be a little disappointed in her.  She has but one thought, one care, one end and aim in life—­her husband.”

The Doctor had judged correctly.  Cornelia was disappointed from the first moment.  She was taken to the dim uncanny drawing-room by Ameer, and left among its ill-omened gods, and odd treasure-trove for nearly half an hour before madame came to her.  The rudely graven faces, so marvellously instinct with life, made her miserable; she fancied a thousand mockeries and scorns in them; and no thought of Hyde, or Arenta, or of the happy hours spent in that ill-boding room, could charm away its sinister influence.

When madame at length came to her, she appeared like the very genius of the place.  The experiences of the past year had left traces which no after experience would be able to obliterate.  She looked ten years older.  Her wonderful dark eyes, glowing with a soft tender fire alone remained untouched by the withering hand of anxious love.  They were as vital as ever they had been, and when Cornelia said so, she answered, “That is because my soul dwells in them, and my soul is always young.  I have had a year, Cornelia, to crumble the body to dust; but my soul made light of it for love’s sake.  Did your father tell you how much Captain Jacobus had suffered?”

“Yes, madame.”

But in spite of this assurance, madame went over the whole story in detail, and Cornelia could not help but remember that Mr. Van Ariens had said “about her husband she will talk constantly, and to the whole town.”  For however far the conversation diverged for a moment, madame always brought it sharply back to the one subject that interested her.  Even Arenta’s peculiarly dangerous position could not detain her thoughts and interest for many minutes.

“I am sorry for Arenta,” she said; “no greater hell can there be, than to live in constant fear.  But she has the gift of a clever tongue, and every one has not the like talent; and also if a woman with the decency of her sex may be a scholar, Arenta has learning enough to compass the fools who might injure her.”

“Marat and Robespierre are both against her husband, and she may share his fate.”