It would be a strange experience to
meet her in her proper setting, and if the _Pennant_ should give him
the opportunity he determined not to miss it. Next morning the ship
left Kingstown for Bermuda.

It was not in Radway's nature to take these things lightly. At a
distance the memory of Gabrielle gained a good deal by imagination. It
seemed to him that she was far too precious to lose, and the fact that
she was a cousin of the exclusive Halbertons settled any social
scruples that might have worried him. He forgot his repulse at Howth
in the memory of the sweeter moment when they had parted. After all
there was no hurry. She was only a child, as her behaviour had shown
him so often. At the same time he was anxious that she should not
forget him, and for this reason he wrote her a number of letters from
Bermuda, from Jamaica and Barbadoes and other ports on the Atlantic
station. They were not love letters in any sense of the word; but they
served to keep him in her mind, and, few as they were, made an immense
breach in the zone of isolation that surrounded Roscarna.

They were the first letters of any kind that Gabrielle had received.
The postman from Oughterard did not visit Roscarna twenty times in the
year, and since his arrival was something of an event, entailing a meal
and endless gossip with Biddy Joyce, Sir Jocelyn soon became aware of
his daughter's correspondence. He questioned her about it, and she,
without the least demur, handed him Radway's letters. He sniffed at
them. If that was all the fellow had to say it struck him as a waste
of time and paper. Who was he, anyhow? Gabrielle explained that he
had dined with them at the Halbertons, and Jocelyn, who naturally had
no recollection of the event, was satisfied with these credentials. "I
asked him to come and shoot here," said Gabrielle. Jocelyn stared at
her with wrinkled eyes. "The devil you did!" said he.

Radway's letters had exactly the effect on her that he had intended.
They were an excitement, and she read them over and over again till she
almost knew them by heart. They were the first outside interest that
had ever entered her life. With Considine's help she looked up the
ports at which they were posted on a big map in the library and
thinking of their romantic names and the wonders that they suggested,
she also thought a good deal of the writer.

So it was, almost unconsciously, that Radway began to fill a
considerable place i