“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.  While he gazed, this was torn suddenly aside, as if by an angry, impatient hand, and a man leaned out, throwing back the hair from his forehead, to catch the cold wind which was blowing sharply.  Guy had never seen the dark, passionate face before, but he know whose it was very well, though there was little family likeness to guide him.  Cyril Brandon’s features were small and finely cut, like his sister’s; but there the resemblance ended.  His complexion, naturally sallow, had been burnt three shades deeper by the Indian sun.  His fierce black eyes, and thin lips, that seemed always ready to curl or quiver, made the contrast with Constance very striking.