Driven to Bay, Volume I by Florence Marryat

The man who aspires to outwit a woman, gifted with the most ordinary characteristics of her sex, should get up very early in the morning. His brain may be larger and heavier than hers, but her instincts are so keen, her wits so sharp, and she knows so well how to draw an inference, that in a game of _finesse_ she has pieced the puzzle and put it together before his slower comprehension has arrived at the conviction that there is anything to find out at all. Godfrey Harland prided himself the following day on the perfect manner in which he had deceived his wife. She believed him to be on his way to Harfleur, and by the time she expected to see him back again he would be on his way to New Zealand and he chuckled inwardly to remember that he had not left a single clue to his destination behind. It is true that he was very much annoyed at discovering the loss of his money, but he did not attribute it to any manœuvering on the part of his wife. He knew that he had drank too freely the night before, and had played at cards after he left Iris, when he scarcely knew if he had lost or won. But any way, he had enough coin left for his purpose, and matters might have been worse. And had it been all gone, he would rather have applied to Mr Vansittart for a further loan, than have returned to look for it in the house at Pimlico. He had cheated them there nicely, he thought, with an idiotic, triumphant chuckle. Iris believed him to be crossing the Channel, and it would never do to disturb her confidence by returning home again. A second set of excuses would not be swallowed so easily as the first.

And whilst the poor fool congratulated himself thus, Iris was taking her way, timidly, from the fear of meeting him, but still determinately, to the offices of Messrs Stern & Stales. It was a novel scene in which she found herself. The firm of Stern & Stales was one of the largest in the metropolis. They owned a large number of ships, besides chartering others, so that it was not an uncommon occurrence for seventy vessels, all flying the house flag of the company, to leave the docks for New Zealand and the Colonies in the course of a year. Their office was in Fenchurch Street. At the head of a flight of broad stone steps, with iron railings, was a large room in which a dozen clerks sat scribbling away at their ledgers, or poring over bills of lading, manifests, and invoices. On the walls were ranged half-models of the different vessels in their employ, and nautical almanacks and advertisements were hung in conspicuous positions. As Iris entered this room on the morning in question, and glanced nervously around her, two young men started from their desks simultaneously to ask her pleasure. She was plainly dressed and closely veiled, but her graceful figure and youthful appearance attracted immediate attention, and shipping clerks have their feelings.