h rigid head and the two hands hanging
lightly clasped in front--only now a small sunshade was dangling from
them. I saw something fateful in that deliberate pacing towards the
inconspicuous door with the words _Hotel Entrance_ on the glass-panels.

She was abreast of it now and I thought that she would stop again; but
no! She swerved rigidly--at the moment there was no one near her; she
had that bit of pavement to herself--with inanimate slowness as if moved
by something outside herself.

"A confounded convict," Fyne burst out.

With the sound of that word offending my ears I saw the girl extend her
arm, push the door open a little way and glide in. I saw plainly that
movement, the hand put out in advance with the gesture of a
sleep-walker.

She had vanished, her black figure had melted in the darkness of the
open door. For some time Fyne said nothing; and I thought of the girl
going upstairs, appearing before the man. Were they looking at each
other in silence and feeling they were alone in the world as lovers
should at the moment of meeting? But that fine forgetfulness was surely
impossible to Anthony the seaman directly after the wrangling interview
with Fyne the emissary of an order of things which stops at the edge of
the sea. How much he was disturbed I couldn't tell because I did not
know what that impetuous lover had had to listen to.

"Going to take the old fellow to sea with them," I said. "Well I really
don't see what else they could have done with him. You told your
brother-in-law what you thought of it? I wonder how he took it."

"Very improperly," repeated Fyne. "His manner was offensive, derisive,
from the first. I don't mean he was actually rude in words. Hang it
all, I am not a contemptible ass. But he was exulting at having got
hold of a miserable girl."

"It is pretty certain that she will be much less poor and miserable," I
murmured.

It looked as if the exultation of Captain Anthony had got on Fyne's
nerves. "I told the fellow very plainly that he was abominably selfish
in this," he affirmed unexpectedly.

"You did! Selfish!" I said rather taken aback. "But what if the girl
thought that, on the contrary, he was most generous."

"What do you know about it," growled Fyne. The rents and slashes of his
solemnity were closing up gradually but it was going to be a surly
solemnity. "Generosity! I am disposed to give it another name. No.
Not folly," he shot out at me as th