CHAPTER XI.
DEEP WATERS Wild white roses that grew in the sandy stubble above the shore, little orange-scented roses that straggled through the grass--they called to something that ran in Columbine's blood, they spoke to her of the South.
She was sure that she would find those roses all about her feet when she came to the end of the long voyage.

She would see their golden hearts wide open to the sun.

For their fragrance haunted her day by day as she floated down the long glassy stretches and rocked on the waveless swells.
Sometimes she had a curious fancy that she was lying dead, and they had strewn the sweet flowers all about her.

She hoped that they might not be buried with her; they were too beautiful for that.
At other times she thought of them as a bridal wreath, purer than the purest orange-blossom that ever decked a bride.

Once, too--this was when she was nearing the end of the voyage--there came to her a magic whiff of wet bog-myrtle that made her fancy that she must be a bride indeed.
At last, just when it seemed to her that her boat was gently grounding upon the sand where the little white roses grew, she opened her eyes widely, wonderingly, and realised that the voyage was over.
She was lying in her own little room at The Ship, and Mrs.Peck, with motherly kindness writ large on her comely, plump face, was bending over her with a cup of steaming broth in her hand.
Columbine gazed at her with a bewildered sense of having slept too long.
Mrs.Peck nodded at her cheerily.