all off, and at
last ceased coming altogether. For two years nothing was heard of his
whereabouts except that which was gathered in a mysterious reserved way
at the owners' office, and during the whole of these agonizing months
never a mail went without a letter for him, and never a word of
reproach was uttered or written, though the heart of the little writer
was throbbing with soreness. The shipping newspaper was scanned each
day, and whenever she saw the vessel he had left home in reported, her
hope revived almost to the point of gaiety. Could she have known that
her husband had long since left the vessel whose name she watched so
eagerly, and the sight of which filled her soul with strange emotion,
she might have succumbed to the numbing intelligence. When the weather
was fine she strolled to the white sandy beach that was only a few
minutes' walk from her house, and there she would give herself up to
the luxury of day-dreams. Her fancy was sometimes pleased by the
thought that she could see the wake of the beautiful vessel as it
ploughed through the peaceful ocean. She listened to the gurgle of the
miniature waves until the sigh of the night wind came and reminded her
it was time to go home. These occasions were made memorable by the use
they were put to. Many a subject for a new essay that was to be sent
over the seas found its text on the lonely stretch of sand. Sometimes a
shrewd hint was dropped in by the way that his communications must have
miscarried, and that there was a painful longing to see his handwriting
once again. "I cannot imagine you wilfully or negligently ignoring me,"
said the writer, but she had a grave suspicion that she was being
neglected, and a still graver suspicion that the cause thereof was not
excessive sanctification.

After twenty-four months of roving and of silence, a letter came from
him announcing that he was tired of staying away, and by the time the
letter was received he would be on his way home. He acknowledged having
received a number of letters, and then proceeded in a clumsy way to
make it appear that he _had_ written, and many sanguinary descriptions
as to how some people who were supposed to be concerned in the plot of
withholding his letters had to meet their death at his hands. In due
course he arrived home, but nothing could induce him to be drawn into a
conversation about the missing correspondence. Time had made him more
charitably disposed towards the mythical burgl