ery bad indeed.'

'Oh, papa,' cried Mabel, 'please don't break it to us--tell it at
once, whatever it is!'

'You must let me choose my own course, my dear; I am coming to the
point at once. The "Globe" has a telegram from Lloyd's agent reporting
the total loss of the "Mangalore."'

'Vincent's ship!' said Mabel. 'Is--is he saved?'

'We cannot be certain of anything just yet--and--and these disasters
are generally exaggerated in the first accounts, but I'm afraid there
is very grave reason to fear that the poor boy went down with her--not
many passengers were on board at the time, and only four or five of
them were saved, and they are women. We can hope for the best still,
but I cannot after reading the particulars feel any confidence myself.
I made inquiries at the owners' offices this afternoon, but they could
tell me very little just yet, though they will have fuller information
by to-morrow--but from what they did say I cannot feel very hopeful.'

Mabel hid her face, trying to realise that the man who had sat
opposite to her there scarcely a month ago, with the strange, almost
prophetic, sadness in his eyes, was lying somewhere still and white,
fathoms deep under the sea--she was too stunned for tears just yet.

'Gerald,' said Mrs. Langton, 'Vincent is drowned--I'm sure of it. I
feel this will be a terrible shock to me by-and-by; I don't know when
I shall get over it--poor, poor dear fellow! To think that the last
time I saw him was that evening we dined at the Gordons'--you
remember, Gerald, a dull dinner--and he saw me into the carriage, and
stood there on the pavement saying good-bye!' Mrs. Langton seemed to
consider that these circumstances had a deep pathos of their own; she
pressed her eyes daintily with her handkerchief before she could go
on. 'Why didn't he sail by one of the safe lines?' she murmured; 'the
P. and O. never lost a single life; he might have gone in one of them
and been alive now!'

'My dear Belle,' said her husband, 'we can't foresee these things,
it--it _was_ to be, I suppose.'

'Is nothing more known?' said Mabel, with a strong effort to control
her voice.

'Here is the account--stay, I can give you the effect of it. It was in
the Indian Ocean, not long after leaving Bombay, somewhere off the
Malabar coast; and the ship seems to have grazed a sunken reef, which
ripped a fearful hole in her side, without stopping her course. They
were not near enough to the land to hope to reverse t