intention of doing
so early enough to allow of his rejoining his companions, however
slowly they might walk. Neither did he mean to deprive old Mrs.
Vereker of Rosalind until she had had her full allowance of her. In an
hour would do--or three-quarters. He discounted twenty-five per cent.,
owing to a recollection of the green veil and spectacles. Then he felt
unkind, and said to himself, that, after all, the old woman couldn't
help it.

Fenwick felt he was making a great concession in giving up
three-quarters of an hour of Rosalind. As soon as he had had exercise
enough for the day, and was in a mood to smoke and saunter about idly,
he wanted Rosalind badly, and was little disposed to give her up. But
the old Goody was going away to-morrow, and he would be liberal. He
would take a turn along the sea-front--would have time to get down to
the jetty--and then would invade the cave of the Octopus and extract
the prisoner from its tentacles.

His intention in forsaking Sally and the doctor was half suspected by
the latter, quite clear to himself, and only unperceived by his opaque
stepdaughter. As he idled down towards the old fisher-dwellings and
the net-huts, he tried to picture the form the declaration would take,
and the way it would be received. That this would be favourable he
never doubted for a moment; but he recalled the speech of Benedict
to Beatrice, "By my troth I take thee for pity," and fancied Sally's
response might be of the same complexion. His recollection of these
words produced a mental recurrence, a distressing and imperfect one,
connected with the earlier time he could not reach back to, of the
words being used to himself by a girl who ascribed them to Rosalind
in _As You Like It_, and a discussion after of their whereabouts in
Shakespeare.

The indescribable wrench this gave his mind was so painful that he
was quite relieved to recall Vereker's opinion that it was always
the imperfection of the memory and the effort that gave pain, not the
thing remembered. And in this case there could be no doubt that it
was a mere dream, for the girl not only took the form of his Rosey
he was going back to directly, but actually claimed her name, saying
distinctly, "like my namesake, Celia's friend, in Shakespeare." Could
any clearer proof be given that it was mere brain-froth?

The man with "Bessie" and "Elinor" tattooed on his arm was enjoying
a pipe and mending a net, not to be too idle. The glass might be