to controvert his concluding words:

"An awful night, gents; but duty's duty, and the firm behaved handsome.
Mr. Sassnett, I'll trouble you for a light, sir." And so he ignited a
fuller-flavored Cuba, and drank, in a sweeter grog, "Our noble
selves"--_olim haec meminisse juvabit_.

There was one striking contrast on board to the gallant Winder.
Livingstone did not go below, but walked the deck all night long,
straining his eyes eagerly forward through the thick darkness and the
driving rain.

Captain Weatherby regarded him approvingly, as, halting in his walk, Guy
stood near him, upright and steady as a mainmast of Memel pine. "That's
the sort I like to carry," the old sailor remarked confidentially to
his second in command as they shared an amicable grog under the shelter
of the companion.

The wind abated toward morning; and, as the dawn broke, they were under
the lee of the Wight, and moving steadily into the quiet Solent.

Guy made his way straight to Ventnor. Twenty-four hours after her
summons reached him, Constance knew that her lover had never received
her first letter, and that now he was within five hundred yards of her,
waiting to be called into her presence.

It was long before her answer came. It only contained a few hurried
words, saying that it was impossible for her to see him that day, and
begging him not to be angry, but to wait. The hand-writing was far more
faltering and uncertain than that which had struck him so painfully with
its weakness the day before. It spoke plainly of the effort which it had
cost the invalid to trace even those brief lines. He did not try to
delude himself any more, but all that day remained alone, face to face
with his despair.

He went out after nightfall, and stole up cautiously to the house where
Constance was staying.

It is not only ghosts that _walk_. Men, as powerless to retrieve the
past as if they were already disembodied spirits, _will_ haunt the
scenes and sepulchres of their lost happiness even before they die.
Though the world was all before them where to choose, I doubt not that
the exiles from Paradise lingered long just without the sweep of the
flaming sword.

Two rooms in the house were lighted, one with the faint glimmer peculiar
to the shaded lamp of a sick-room. Guy's pulse bounded wildly at first,
and then grew dull and still. In that room he knew Constance lay dying.
The other window was brightly lighted, but half shaded by a curtain.
Whil