ELL SEES AND HEARS.

"You remember," went on Marlow, "how I feared that Mr Powell's want of
experience would stand in his way of appreciating the unusual. The
unusual I had in my mind was something of a very subtle sort: the
unusual in marital relations. I may well have doubted the capacity of a
young man too much concerned with the creditable performance of his
professional duties to observe what in the nature of things is not
easily observable in itself, and still less so under the special
circumstances. In the majority of ships a second officer has not many
points of contact with the captain's wife. He sits at the same table
with her at meals, generally speaking; he may now and then be addressed
more or less kindly on insignificant matters, and have the opportunity
to show her some small attentions on deck. And that is all. Under such
conditions, signs can be seen only by a sharp and practised eye. I am
alluding now to troubles which are subtle often to the extent of not
being understood by the very hearts they devastate or uplift.

"Yes, Mr Powell, whom the chance of his name had thrown upon the
floating stage of that tragi-comedy would have been perfectly useless
for my purpose if the unusual of an obvious kind had not aroused his
attention from the first.

"We know how he joined that ship so suddenly offered to his anxious
desire to make a real start in his profession. He had come on board
breathless with the hurried winding up of his shore affairs, accompanied
by two horrible nightbirds, escorted by a dock policeman on the make,
received by an asthmatic shadow of a ship-keeper, warned not to make a
noise in the darkness of the passage because the captain and his wife
were already on board. That in itself was already somewhat unusual.
Captains and their wives do not, as a rule, join a moment sooner than is
necessary. They prefer to spend the last moments with their friends and
relations. A ship in one of London's older docks with their
restrictions as to lights and so on is not the place for a happy
evening. Still, as the tide served at six in the morning, one could
understand them coming on board the evening before.

"Just then young Powell felt as if anybody ought to be glad enough to be
quit of the shore. We know he was an orphan from a very early age,
without brothers or sisters--no near relations of any kind, I believe,
except that aunt who had quarrelled with his father. No affection stood