hild looked back at me with its radiant smile, and
pointed eastward down the river toward the distant sea. While my eyes
were still fixed on the softly glowing figure, I saw it fade away upward
and upward into the higher light, as the lark vanishes upward and
upward in the morning sky. I was alone again with my earthly
fellow-beings--left with no clew to guide me but the remembrance of the
child's hand pointing eastward to the distant sea.

A sailor was near me coiling the loosened mooring-rope on the deck. I
asked him to what port the vessel was bound. The man looked at me in
surly amazement, and answered:

"To Rotterdam."

CHAPTER XXXIV. BY LAND AND SEA.

IT mattered little to me to what port the vessel was bound. Go where I
might, I knew that I was on my way to Mrs. Van Brandt. She had need
of me again; she had claimed me again. Where the visionary hand of the
child had pointed, thither I was destined to go. Abroad or at home,
it mattered nothing: when I next set my foot on the land, I should be
further directed on the journey which lay before me. I believed this as
firmly as I believed that I had been guided, thus far, by the vision of
the child.

For two nights I had not slept--my weariness overpowered me. I descended
to the cabin, and found an unoccupied corner in which I could lie down
to rest. When I awoke, it was night already, and the vessel was at sea.

I went on deck to breathe the fresh air. Before long the sensation of
drowsiness returned; I slept again for hours together. My friend, the
physician, would no doubt have attributed this prolonged need of repose
to the exhausted condition of my brain, previously excited by delusions
which had lasted uninterruptedly for many hours together. Let the cause
be what it might, during the greater part of the voyage I was awake at
intervals only. The rest of the time I lay like a weary animal, lost in
sleep.

When I stepped on shore at Rotterdam, my first proceeding was to ask my
way to the English Consulate. I had but a small sum of money with me;
and, for all I knew to the contrary, it might be well, before I did
anything else, to take the necessary measures for replenishing my purse.

I had my traveling-bag with me. On the journey to Greenwater Broad I had
left it at the inn in the market-town, and the waiter had placed it in
the carriage when I started on my return to London. The bag contained my
checkbook, and certain letters which assisted me in proving