ys were resting on the bottom of the sea several miles
astern--all but one.

There was no dressing for dinner that night. Liane Delorme, her nerves
rasped almost beyond endurance by the relentless fog signal, preferred
the seclusion of her stateroom. Lanyard wasn't really sorry; the bosom
of a white shirt is calculated to make some impression upon the human
retina even on the darkest night; whereas his plain lounge suit of blue
serge was sure to prove entirely inconspicuous. So, if he missed the
feminine influence at table, he bore up with good fortitude.

And after dinner he segregated himself as usual in his favourite chair
near the taffrail. The fog, if anything denser than before,
manufactured an early dusk of a peculiarly depressing violet shade.
Nevertheless, evenings are long in that season of the year, and to
Lanyard it seemed that the twilight would never quite fade out
completely, true night would never come.

Long before it did, speed was slackened: the yacht was at last in
soundings; the calls of the leadsmen were as monotonous as the whistle
blasts, and almost as frequent. Lanyard could have done without both,
if the ship could not. He remarked a steadily intensified exacerbation
of nerves, and told himself he was growing old and no mistake. He could
remember the time when he could have endured a strain of waiting
comparable to that which he must suffer now, and have turned never a
hair.

How long ago it seemed!...

Another sign that the Sybarite had entered what are technically
classified as inland waters, where special rules of the road apply, was
to be remarked in the fact that the fog signal was now roaring once
each minute, whereas Lanyard had grown accustomed to timing the
intervals between the sounding of the ship's bell, upon which all his
interest hung, at the rate of fifteen blasts to the half hour.

If you asked him, once a minute seemed rather too much of a good thing,
even in busy lanes of sea traffic. Still, it was better perhaps than
unpremeditated disaster; one was not keen about having the Sybarite
ground on a sandbank, pile up on a rock, or dash her brains out against
the bulk of another vessel--before eleven o'clock at earliest.

In retrospect he counted those two hours between dinner and ten-thirty
longer than the fortnight which had prefaced them. So is the heart of
man ever impatient when the journey's-end draws near, though that end
be but the beginning, as well, of that longe