“Have I played my ace ill after all?” said Tom, sitting down to consider.  “As for whether I should have played it all, that’s no business of mine now.  Madam Might-have-been may see to that.  But did I play ill? for if I did, I may try a new lead yet.  Ought I to have twitted him about his wife?  If he’s venomous, it may only make matters worse; and still worse if he be suspicious.  I don’t think he was either in old times; but vanity will make a man so, and it may have made him.  Well, I must only ingratiate myself all the more with her; and find out, too, whether she has his secret as well as I. What I am most afraid of is my having told him plainly that he was in my power; it’s apt to make sprats of his size flounce desperately, in the mere hope of proving themselves whales after all, if it’s only to their miserable selves.  Never mind; he can’t break my tackle; and besides, that gripe of the hand seemed to indicate that the poor wretch was beat, and thought himself let off easily—­as indeed he is.  We’ll hope so.  Now, zoophytes, for another turn with you!”

To tell the truth, however, Tom is looking for more than zoophytes, and has been doing so at every dead low tide since he was wrecked.  He has heard nothing yet of his belt.  The notes have not been presented at the London bank; nobody in the village has been spending more money than usual; for cunning Tom has contrived already to know how many pints of ale every man of whom he has the least doubt has drunk.  Perhaps, after all, the belt may have been torn off in the life struggle; it may have been for a moment in Grace’s hands, and then have been swept into the sea.  What more likely?  And what more likely, in that case, that, sinking by its weight, it is wedged away in some cranny of the rocks?

So spring-tide after spring-tide Tom searches, and all the more carefully because others are searching too, for waifs and strays from the wreck.  Sad relics of mortality he finds at times, as others do:  once, even, a dressing-case, full of rings and pins and chains, which belonged, he fancied, to a gay young bride with whom he had waltzed many a time on deck, as they slipped along before the soft trade-wind:  but no belt.  He sent the dressing-case to the Lloyd’s underwriters, and searched on:  but in vain.  Neither could he find that any one else had forestalled him; and that very afternoon, sulky and disheartened, he determined to waste no more time about the matter, and strode home, vowing signal vengeance against the thief, if he caught him.

“And I will catch him!  These west-country yokels, to fancy that they can do Tom Thurnall!  It’s adding insult to injury, as Sam Weller’s parrot has it.”

Now his shortest way home lay across the shore, and then along the beach, and up the steps by the little waterfall, past Mrs. Harvey’s door; and at that door sat Grace, sewing in the sun.  She looked up and bowed as his passed, smiling modestly, and little dreaming of what was passing in his mind; and when a very lovely girl smiled and bowed to Tom, he must needs do the same to her:  whereon she added,—­