cabin that coherent utterance and converse
with his kind were alike impossible.

So far as Mr. Port was concerned the ensuing six days made up an
epoch in his life that can only be described as an agonized blank. And
when--as it seemed to him many ages later--the _Fleetwings_ once more
cast anchor off Narragansett Pier, and he stepped shakily from the
schooner's gig to the Casino dock, the usual plumpness and ruddiness of
his face had given place to a yellow leanness, and his weight had been
reduced by very nearly twenty pounds. The cruise had been a flying one,
or he never would have finished it. After the first six hours he would
have landed on a desert island cheerfully--and it is not impossible that
a hint from Dorothy as to her uncle's probable movements should a harbor
be made had induced Livingstone to give the land a wide berth.

Dorothy came ashore blooming. "You don't know, Uncle Hutchinson,"
she said, "what a perfectly lovely time I've had"--and this cheerful
assertion was the literal truth, for Mr. Port had entered his cabin
before the yacht had crossed the line between Beaver Tail and Point
Judith, and had not emerged from it until the anchor went overboard.
"And you don't know," Miss Lee went on with effusion, "how grateful your
angel is to you for helping her to have such a delightful cruise. I'm
sorry that you haven't been very well, Uncle Hutchinson; but I know
that you will be all the better for it. Poor dear mamma, you know, was
bilious too, and going to sea always made her wretched; but she used to
be wonderfully well always when she got on shore again. And you'll be
wonderfully well too, you dear; and that will be your reward for helping
your angel to have such a perfectly delightful time."

Mr. Port made no reply to this address, for his condition of collapse
was too complete to permit him to give form in words to the thoughts
of rage and resentment which were burning in the depths of his injured
soul. Without a word to one single member of the party, he climbed
heavily into a carriage and was driven directly to his hotel--while
Dorothy, still under the chaperonage of Mrs. Rattleton, gayly joined
the pleasant little lunch-party at the Casino with which the yacht
voyage came to an end.

IX.

During the ensuing week, a considerable portion of which Mr. Port passed
in the privacy of his own room, the relations between Miss Lee and her
guardian were characterized by a chill formality that w