deal him a swift and painless death, and free him from the
misery he had brought upon himself. He would have been glad, like the
lover in 'The Last Ride Together'--although for very different
reasons--if the world could end that day, and his guilt be swallowed
up in the sum of iniquity. But no collision occurred, and (as it is
perhaps unnecessary to add) the universe did not gratify him by
dissolving on that occasion. The train brought him safely to the
Plymouth platform, and left him there to face his difficulty alone. It
was about six o'clock in the evening, and he lost no time in inquiring
at his hotel for the P. and O. agents, and in making his way to their
offices up the stony streets and along a quiet lane over the hill by
Hoegate. He was received with courtesy and told all that he wished to
know. The 'Coromandel' was not in yet; would not be in now until after
dark--if then. They would send him word if the tender was to go out
the next morning, said the agent as he wrote him the necessary order
to go on board her. After that Mark went back to the hotel and
dined--or rather attempted to dine--in the big coffee-room by the side
of a blazing fire that was powerless to thaw the cold about his heart,
and then he retired to the smoking-room, which he had all to himself,
and where he sat staring grimly at the leather benches and cold
marble-topped tables around him, while he could hear muffled music and
applause from the theatre hard by, varied by the click of the balls in
the billiard-room at the end of the corridor. Presently the waiter
announced a messenger for him, and on going out into the hall he found
a man of seafaring appearance, who brought him a card stating that the
tender would leave the Millbay Pier at six the next morning, by which
time the 'Coromandel' would most probably be in. Mark went up to his
bedroom that night as to a condemned cell; he dreaded another night of
sleepless tossing. Sleep came to him, however, merciful and dreamless,
as it will sometimes to those in desperate case, but he yielded to it
with terror as he felt it coming upon him--for it brought the morning
nearer.

CHAPTER XXIX.

ON BOARD THE 'COROMANDEL.'

It was quite dark the next morning when the hammering of the 'boots'
outside the door roused Mark to a miserable sense of the unwelcome
duty before him. He dressed by candlelight, and, groping his way down
the silent staircase, hunted about in the shuttered coffee-room fo