Nella did not hope that the Baroness was on board; it was quite possible for the Baroness to have caught the eight o'clock steamer, and it was also possible for the Baroness not to have gone to Ostend at all, but to some other place in an entirely different direction.

Nevertheless, Nella had a faint hope that the lady who called herself Zerlinski might be in that curtained stateroom, and throughout the smooth moonlit voyage she never once relaxed her observation of its doors and its windows.
The Maria Henriette arrived in Ostend Harbour punctually at 2 a.m.

in the morning.

There was the usual heterogeneous, gesticulating crowd on the quay.
Nella kept her post near the door of the state-room, and at length she was rewarded by seeing it open.

Four middle-aged Englishmen issued from it.