imate slowness as if moved
by something outside herself.

"A confounded convict," Fyne burst out.

With the sound of that word offending my ears I saw the girl extend her
arm, push the door open a little way and glide in. I saw plainly that
movement, the hand put out in advance with the gesture of a sleep-walker.

She had vanished, her black figure had melted in the darkness of the open
door. For some time Fyne said nothing; and I thought of the girl going
upstairs, appearing before the man. Were they looking at each other in
silence and feeling they were alone in the world as lovers should at the
moment of meeting? But that fine forgetfulness was surely impossible to
Anthony the seaman directly after the wrangling interview with Fyne the
emissary of an order of things which stops at the edge of the sea. How
much he was disturbed I couldn't tell because I did not know what that
impetuous lover had had to listen to.

"Going to take the old fellow to sea with them," I said. "Well I really
don't see what else they could have done with him. You told your brother-
in-law what you thought of it? I wonder how he took it."

"Very improperly," repeated Fyne. "His manner was offensive, derisive,
from the first. I don't mean he was actually rude in words. Hang it
all, I am not a contemptible ass. But he was exulting at having got hold
of a miserable girl."

"It is pretty certain that she will be much less poor and miserable," I
murmured.

It looked as if the exultation of Captain Anthony had got on Fyne's
nerves. "I told the fellow very plainly that he was abominably selfish
in this," he affirmed unexpectedly.

"You did! Selfish!" I said rather taken aback. "But what if the girl
thought that, on the contrary, he was most generous."

"What do you know about it," growled Fyne. The rents and slashes of his
solemnity were closing up gradually but it was going to be a surly
solemnity. "Generosity! I am disposed to give it another name. No. Not
folly," he shot out at me as though I had meant to interrupt him. "Still
another. Something worse. I need not tell you what it is," he added
with grim meaning.

"Certainly. You needn't--unless you like," I said blankly. Little Fyne
had never interested me so much since the beginning of the de
Barral-Anthony affair when I first perceived possibilities in him. The
possibilities of dull men are exciting because when they happen they
suggest legendary cases of "p