There was a keen northeasterly breeze, cold and penetrating, but favourable to a rapid crossing.

Marguerite, who had gone through several hours of weary travelling by coach, before she had embarked at Dover in the late afternoon, was unspeakably tired.

She had watched the golden sunset out at sea until her eyes were burning with pain, and as the dazzling crimson and orange and purple gave place to the soft grey tones of evening, she descried the round cupola of the church of Our Lady of Boulogne against the dull background of the sky.
After that her mind became a blank.

A sort of torpor fell over her sense: she was wakeful and yet half-asleep, unconscious of everything around her, seeing nothing but the distant massive towers of old Boulogne churches gradually detaching themselves one by one from out the fast gathering gloom.
The town seemed like a dream city, a creation of some morbid imagination, presented to her mind's eye as the city of sorrow and death.
When the boat finally scraped her sides along the rough wooden jetty, Marguerite felt as if she were forcibly awakened.

She was numb and stiff and thought she must have fallen asleep during the last half hour of the journey.