be in perfect amity with every member of that restricted circle.  Hence it vexed and fretted him to know the circle incomplete, through the exclusion of one rather flagrantly intimate example.  Yet to draw the said member, the said example, within the circle, yielding it the place which it might rightfully aspire to occupy, amounted—­after half a lifetime of abstention and avoidance—­to a rather tremendous demonstration, one which might well be hailed as extravagant, as a courting of offence possible only to a sentimental egoist of most aggravated kind.

And he was tired—­had no smallest inclination towards demonstrations.  For the threatening of heart spasm, to which he lately denied the title of pain, though of short duration, affected him adversely, sapping his strength.  His mind, it is true, remained clear, even vividly receptive; but, just as earlier this morning, his will proved insufficient for its direction or control.  He mused, his chin sunk on his breast, his left hand travelling down over the long soft moustache, his eyes half closed.  Thought and vision followed their own impulse, wandering back and forth between the low-caste eating-house in the sweltering heat and perfumed stenches of the oriental, tropic seaport; and the stone-built English inn—­here on Marychurch Haven—­overlooking the desolate waste of sand-hills, the dark reed-beds and chill gleaming tides.

For love of Damaris, his daughter, while still in the heat of his prime, he had foresworn all traffic with women.  Yet now, along with the tacitly admitted claims of the son, arose the claim of the mistress, mother of that son—­in no sensual sort, but with a certain wildness of bygone romance, wind and rain-swept, unsubstantial, dim and grey.  Ever since conviction of the extreme gravity of his physical condition dawned on him, the idea of penetrating the courts of that deserted sanctuary had been recurrent.  In the summing up of his human, his earthly, experience, romance deserved, surely, a word of farewell?  Damaris’ story served to give the idea a fuller appeal and consistency.

But he was tired—­tired.  He longed simply to drift.  It was infinitely distasteful to him definitely to plan, or to decide respecting anything.

Meanwhile his continued silence and abstraction wore badly upon Damaris.  She had steeled herself; had flamed, greatly daring.  Now reaction set in.  Her effort proved vain.  She had failed.  For once more she recognized that an unknown influence, a power dark and incalculably strong—­so she figured it—­regained ascendency over her father, working to the insidious changing of his nature, strangely winning him away.  Waiting for some response, some speech or comment on his part, fear and the sense of helplessness assailed, and would have submerged her, had she not clung to Carteret’s parting “God bless you” and avowed faith in her stability, as to a wonder-working charm.  Nor did the charm fail in efficacy.—­Oh! really he was a wonderful sheet-anchor, “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land,” that dear man with the blue eyes!  Consciously she blessed him.—­And, thanks to remembrance of him, presently found voice and purpose once again.