"Yes," Lucy said, taking one of Grey's hands, and holding it caressingly, for she guessed what was in his heart. "Tell me about her if you can. You say she is dead, and you are sure?"
"Yes, sure," he answered. "I did not see her die, it is true, but I know she is dead, and I have stood by her grave at Stoneleigh. When I left you in London I went to her grave, and I believe I left all my life and soul there with her. I never thought I could talk to any one of her, but it seems to me now it would be a relief to tell you about her. Shall I?"
"Yes, tell me," Lucy said, and closing his eyes, and leaning back wearily in his chair, Grey told her everything he knew with regard to Bessie McPherson, who had died in Rome, and whose grave he had stood beside in the yard at Stoneleigh; told her, too, of Bessie's engagement to Neil, of which he had heard from Jack Trevellian, and of Neil's apparent heartlessness and indifference when he met him in the streets of Liverpool.
"Poor little Bessie," he said in conclusion. "You don't know what a weary life she led, or how bravely she bore it; but she is dead, and perhaps it is better so than if she were the wife of Neil."
"Poor boy," Lucy said, very gently, when he had finished his story, "you loved Bessie very much."
"Yes, I loved her so much that just to have her mine for one brief month I believe I would give twenty years of my life," Grey replied, and every word was a sob, for he was moved as he had never before been moved, even when he first heard that Bessie was dead.
All thoughts of going on deck were given up for that day, and when the steward came to help him up the stairs, he helped him instead to his berth, where he lay with his eyes closed, though Lucy, who sat beside him, knew he was not asleep, for occasionally a tear gathered on his long lashes and dropped upon his cheek.
Late in the afternoon Lucy made her way again to the steerage quarters, for thoughts of the sick girl had haunted her continually, though she did not now believe her to be the Bessie whom Grey had loved and lost. But who was she, and who was the Neil of whom she had inadvertently spoken? and why was she so like the Bessie, Grey had described?
"Blue eyed, golden-haired, with a face like an angel," she repeated to herself, as she descended the stairs to the lower deck and walked to the door, around which several women were gathered with anxious concern upon their faces.