the vessel, and all
his indifference left him as he hurriedly read the various accounts of
the disaster, and looked in vain for Vincent's name amongst the
survivors.

The next day he, too, went up to the owners' offices to make
inquiries, and by that time full information had come in, which left
it impossible that any but those who had come ashore in the long-boat
could have escaped from the ship. They had remained near the scene of
the wreck for some time, but without picking up more than one or two
of the crew; the rest must all have been sucked down with the ship,
which sank with terrible suddenness at the last.

Vincent was certainly not amongst those in the boat, while, as
appeared from the agent's list, he was evidently on board when the
ship left Bombay. It was possible to hope no longer after that, and
Mark left the offices with the knowledge that Holroyd and he had
indeed taken their last walk together; that he would see his face and
take his hand no more.

It came to him with a shock, the unavoidable shock which a man feels
when he has suddenly to associate the idea of death with one with whom
he has had any intimacy. He told himself he was sorry, and for a
moment Vincent's fate seemed somehow to throw a sort of halo round his
memory, but very soon the sorrow faded, until at last it became little
more than an uneasy consciousness that he ought to be miserable and
was not.

Genuine grief will no more come at command than genuine joy, and so
Mark found, not without some self-reproach; he even began to read 'In
Memoriam' again with the idea of making that the keynote for his
emotions, but the passionate yearning of that lament was pitched too
high for him, and he never finished it. He recognised that he could
not think of his lost friend in the way their long intimacy seemed to
demand, and solved the difficulty by not thinking of him at all,
compounding for his debt of inward mourning by wearing a black tie,
which, as he was fond of a touch of colour in his costume, and as the
emblem in question was not strictly required of him, he looked upon
as, so to speak, a fairly respectable dividend.

Caffyn heard the news with a certain satisfaction. A formidable rival
had been swept out of his path, and he could speak of him now without
any temptation to depreciate his merits, so much so that when he took
an opportunity one day of referring to his loss, he did it so
delicately that Mabel was touched, and liked hi