it now it was with a sense of unreality--surely all these
things which had happened were part of a chimerical dream. It was barely
possible for him to believe that it was he, Scarlett Trent, who had
developed day by day into what he was at that moment. For the man was
changed in a hundred ways. His grey flannel clothes was cut by the
Saville Row tailor of the moment, his hands and hair, his manner of
speech and carriage were all altered. He recalled the men he had
met, the clubs he had joined, his stud of horses at Newmarket, the
country-houses at which he had visited. His most clear impression of the
whole thing was how easy everything had been made for him. His oddness
of speech, his gaucheries, his ignorances and nervousness had all been
so lightly treated that they had been brushed away almost insensibly. He
had been able to do so little that was wrong--his mistakes were ignored
or admired as originality, and yet in some delicate way the right thing
had been made clear to him. Ernestine had stood by his side, always
laughing at this swift fulfilment of her prophecy, always encouraging
him, always enigmatic. Yet at the thought of her a vague sense of
trouble crept into his heart. He took a worn photograph from his pocket
and looked at it long and searchingly, and when he put it away he
sighed. It made no difference of course, but he would rather have found
her like that, the child with sweet, trustful eyes and a laughing mouth.
Was there no life at all, then, outside this little vortex into which
at her bidding he had plunged? Would she never have been content with
anything else? He looked across the placid, blue sea to where the sun
gleamed like silver on a white sail, and sighed again. He must make
himself what she would have him. There was no life for him without her.

The captain came up for his morning chat and some of the passengers, who
eyed him with obvious respect, lingered for a moment about his chair on
their promenade. Trent lit a cigar and presently began to stroll up and
down himself. The salt sea-air was a wonderful tonic to him after
the nervous life of the last few months. He found his spirits rapidly
rising. This voyage had been undertaken in obedience to a sudden but
overpowering impulse. It had come to him one night that he must know for
himself how much truth there was in Da Souza's story. He could not live
with the thought that a thunderbolt was ever in the skies, that at any
moment his life migh