Snewson staggered up to them with the message that Mrs.
Swancourt thought it was time for Elfride to come below. Knight
accompanied her down, and returned again to pass a little more
time on deck.
Elfride partly undressed herself and lay down, and soon became
unconscious, though her sleep was light How long she had lain, she
knew not, when by slow degrees she became cognizant of a
whispering in her ear.
'You are well on with him, I can see. Well, provoke me now, but
my day will come, you will find.' That seemed to be the utterance,
or words to that effect.
Elfride became broad awake and terrified. She knew the words, if
real, could be only those of one person, and that person the widow
Jethway.
The lamp had gone out and the place was in darkness. In the next
berth she could hear her stepmother breathing heavily, further on
Snewson breathing more heavily still. These were the only other
legitimate occupants of the cabin, and Mrs. Jethway must have
stealthily come in by some means and retreated again, or else she
had entered an empty berth next Snewson's. The fear that this was
the case increased Elfride's perturbation, till it assumed the
dimensions of a certainty, for how could a stranger from the other
end of the ship possibly contrive to get in? Could it have been a
dream?
Elfride raised herself higher and looked out of the window. There
was the sea, floundering and rushing against the ship's side just
by her head, and thence stretching away, dim and moaning, into an
expanse of indistinctness; and far beyond all this two placid
lights like rayless stars.
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