, and
very empty. I don't think I shall be able to stand it much longer."

CHAPTER VII.

IN SOLITUDE.

A blustering, cold morning in March; the skies lowering, the wind
increasing, and heavy showers being driven up from time to time from the
black and threatening south-west. This was strange weather to make a man
think of going to the seaside; and of all places at the seaside to
Dover, and of all places in Dover to the Lord Warden Hotel, which was
sure to be filled with fear-stricken foreigners, waiting for the sea to
calm. Waters, as he packed the small portmanteau, could not at all
understand this freak on the part of his master.

"If Lord Evelyn calls, sir," he said at the station, "when shall I say
you will be back?"

"In a few days, perhaps. I don't know."

He had a compartment to himself; and away the train went through the wet
and dismal and foggy country, with the rain pouring down the panes of
the carriage. The dismal prospect outside, however, did not matter much
to this solitary traveller. He turned his back to the window, and read
all the way down.

At Dover the outlook was still more dismal. A dirty, yellow-brown sea
was rolling heavily in, springing white along the Admiralty Pier; gusts
of rain were sweeping along the thoroughfare between the station and the
hotel; in the hotel itself the rooms were occupied by a miscellaneous
collection of dissatisfied folk, who aimlessly read the advertisements
in Bradshaw, or stared through the dripping windows at the yellow waves
outside. This was the condition of affairs when George Brand took up his
residence there. He was quite alone; but he had a sufficiency of books
with him; and so deeply engaged was he with these, that he let the
ordinary coffee-room discussions about the weather pass absolutely
unheeded.

On the second morning a number of the travellers plucked up heart of
grace and embarked, though the weather was still squally. George Brand
was not in the least interested as to the speculations of those who
remained about the responsibilities of the passage. He drew his chair
toward the fire, and relapsed into his reading.

This day, however, was varied by his making the acquaintance of a little
old French lady, which he did by means of her two granddaughters,
Josephine, and Veronique. Veronique, having been pushed by Josephine,
stumbled against Mr. Brand's knee, and would inevitably have fallen into
the fireplace had he not caught her. Th