up acquaintances with fellow-passengers, and a
bridal pair over yonder sit thrilling with the sense of isolation from
the world that so emphasizes their mutual dependence and all-importance
to each other. And other groups are talking business, and referring to
money and markets in New York, London, and Frankfort as glibly as if
they were on land, much to the secret shock of certain raw tourists,
who marvel at the in-sensitiveness of men who, thus speeding between two
worlds, and freshly in the presence of the most august and awful form
of nature, can keep their minds so steadily fixed upon cash-books and
ledgers.

But Randall, as, with the habit of an old voyager, he already falls to
pacing the deck, is too much engrossed with his own thoughts to pay much
heed to these things. Only, as he passes a group of Germans, and the
familiar accents of the sweet, homely tongue fall on his ear, he pauses,
and lingers near.

The darkness gathers, the breeze freshens, the waves come tumbling out
of the east, and the motion of the ship increases as she rears upward to
meet them. The groups on deck are thinning out fast, as the passengers
go below to enjoy the fearsome novelty of the first night at sea, and to
compose themselves to sleep as it were in the hollow of God's hand. But
long into the night Randall's cigar still marks his pacing up and
down as he ponders, with alternations of tender, hopeful glow and sad
foreboding, the chances of his quest. Will he find her?

It is necessary to go back a little. When Randall reached America on his
return from Germany, he immediately began to sow his wild oats, and gave
his whole mind to it. Answering Ida's letters got to be a bore, and he
gradually ceased doing it. Then came a few sad reproaches from her, and
their correspondence ceased. Meanwhile, having had his youthful fling,
he settled down as a steady young man of business. One day he was
surprised to observe that he had of late insensibly fallen into the
habit of thinking a good deal in a pensive sort of way about Ida and
those German days. The notion occurred to him that he would hunt up her
picture, which he had not thought of in five years. With misty eyes and
crowding memories he pored over it, and a wave of regretful, yearning
tenderness filled his breast.

Late one night, after long search, he found among his papers a bundle of
her old letters, already growing yellow. Being exceedingly rusty in his
German, he had to study t