d on through the twilight. "Blessed five minutes! Whatever
else they may take with them, they will carry my thanks for ever.
Look how clear and steady the light of that star is, just over
the church tower. I wonder whether Mary is at a great hot dinner.
Shall you write to her soon?"

"Oh, yes. To-night."

"You may tell her that there is no better Englishman walking the
earth than my friend, John Hardy. Here we are at his lodgings.
East and I are going to tea with him. Wish them good night, and I
will see you home."

CHAPTER XLVIII

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

From the Englebourn festivities, Tom and East returned to London.
The Captain was bent on starting for his possessions in the South
Pacific; and, as he regained strength, energized over all his
preparations, and went about in cabs purchasing agricultural
implements, sometimes by the light of nature, and sometimes under
the guidance of Harry Winburn. He invested also in something of a
library, and in large quantities of saddlery. In short, packages
of all kinds began to increase and multiply upon him. Then there
was the selecting of a vessel, and all the negotiations with the
ship's captain as to terms, and the business of getting
introduced to, and conferring with, people from the colony, or
who were supposed to know something about it. Altogether, East
had plenty of work on his hands; and the more he had to do, the
better and more cheery he became.

Tom, on the contrary, was rather lower than usual. His
half-formed hopes that some good luck was going to happen to him
after Patty's marriage, were beginning to grow faint, and the
contrast of his friend's definite present purpose in life, with
his own uncertainty, made him more or less melancholy in spite of
all his efforts. His father had offered him a tour abroad, now
that he had finished with Oxford, urging that he seemed to want a
change to freshen him up before buckling to a profession, and
that he would never, in all likelihood, have such another chance.
But he could not make up his mind to accept the offer. The
attraction to London was too strong for him; and, though he saw
little hope of anything happening to improve his prospects, he
could not keep away from it. He spent most of his time, when not
with East, in haunting the neighborhood of Mr. Porter's house in
Belgravia, and the places where he was likely to catch distant
glimpses of Mary, avoiding all chance of actual meeting or
recognition, f