device—a mailed hand and arm with the word Fideliter beneath it—had been engraved on a lost watch which had belonged to the child’s mother. But it was all surmise on her part, and she could hardly refrain from shouting aloud to Mr. Grey, standing over there, in dense unconsciousness, to come quickly and interpret this exasperating tongue, which sounded so pretty, and eluded her understanding so hopelessly. 56 The mind of the Count seemed to be turning in the same direction, for, after a little, he arose abruptly, and, setting the child down beside Blythe, walked straight across the deck to the Englishman, whom he accosted so unceremoniously that Blythe’s sense of wonders unfolding was but confirmed. 57 57 The two men turned and walked away to a more secluded part of the deck, where they remained, deep in conversation, for what seemed to Blythe a long, long time. She felt as if she must not leave her seat, lest she miss the thread of the plot,—for a plot it surely was, with its unravelling close at hand. At last she saw the two men striding forward in the direction of the steerage, and with a conspicuous absence of that aimlessness which marks the usual promenade at sea. The little girl was again amusing herself with the glasses, and, as the two arbiters of her destiny passed her line of vision, she laughed aloud at their swiftly diminishing forms. Impelled by a curious feeling that the child must take some serious part in this crucial moment of her destiny, Blythe quietly took the glasses from her and said, as she had done each night when she put her little charge to bed: “Will you say a little prayer, Cecilia?” And the child, wondering, yet perfectly docile, pulled out the little mother-of-pearl 58 rosary that she always wore under her dress, and reverently murmured one of the prayers her mother had taught her. After which, as if beguiled by the association of ideas into thinking it bedtime, she curled herself up on the bench, and, with her head in Blythe’s lap, fell fast asleep. 58 And Blythe sat, lost in thought, absently stroking the little head, until suddenly Mr. Grey appeared before her. “You have been outrageously treated, Miss Blythe,” he declared, seating himself beside her, “but I had to let the old fellow have his
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