went away. My call was not like her
call. Mine was not urged on me with passionate vehemence or tender
gentleness made all the finer and more compelling by the allurements of
generosity which is a virtue as mysterious as any other but having a
glamour of its own. No, it was just a prosaic offer of employment on
rather good terms which, with a sudden sense of having wasted my time on
shore long enough, I accepted without misgivings. And once started out
of my indolence I went, as my habit was, very, very far away and for a
long, long time. Which is another proof of my indolence. How far Flora
went I can't say. But I will tell you my idea: my idea is that she went
as far as she was able--as far as she could bear it--as far as she had
to...

PART TWO, CHAPTER 1.

THE FERNDALE.

I have said that the story of Flora de Barral was imparted to me in
stages. At this stage I did not see Marlow for some time. At last, one
evening rather early, very soon after dinner, he turned up in my rooms.

I had been waiting for his call primed with a remark which had not
occurred to me till after he had gone away.

"I say," I tackled him at once, "how can you be certain that Flora de
Barral ever went to sea? After all, the wife of the captain of the
_Ferndale_--`the lady that mustn't be disturbed' of the old
ship-keeper--may not have been Flora."

"Well, I do know," he said, "if only because I have been keeping in
touch with Mr Powell."

"You have!" I cried. "This is the first I hear of it. And since
when?"

"Why, since the first day. You went up to town leaving me in the inn.
I slept ashore. In the morning Mr Powell came in for breakfast; and
after the first awkwardness of meeting a man you have been yarning with
overnight had worn off, we discovered a liking for each other."

As I had discovered the fact of their mutual liking before either of
them, I was not surprised.

"And so you kept in touch," I said.

"It was not so very difficult. As he was always knocking about the
river I hired Dingle's sloop-rigged three-tonner to be more on an
equality. Powell was friendly but elusive. I don't think he ever
wanted to avoid me. But it is a fact that he used to disappear out of
the river in a very mysterious manner sometimes. A man may land
anywhere and bolt inland--but what about his five-ton cutter? You can't
carry that in your hand like a suit-case.

"Then as suddenly he would reappear in the river, after