The Grey Lady

e more, and h

less, and wha

the blackness of the Channel, and the two Foreland lights twinkling feebly from their snow-clad heights. A night to tu

Dungeness or the Downs. Some of them have gone to th

assengers are below in their berths. Some of them--and not only the ladies--are sending up litt

d in his thickest clothes, and over all of them his black oilskins. A man with three hundred lives

me conscience can well be in a gale of wind, with the Foreland lights ahead and infinite possibilities all around. The captain drinks his whisky and hot

ervating tropics, stares sternly into the night, heedless of the elemental warfare. For Luke FitzHe

reflects the captain of his second of

of seniority on the captain and his second officer. Luke FitzHenry was indefatigable, and, better still, he was without enthu

ride. There are navigators who will steer you from London to Petersburg without taking a sight, from the Thames to the Suez Canal without looking at their sextant. Such a sailor as this was Luke FitzHenry. Perfectly train

gnacious face--a face that might easily degenerate to the coarseness of passion in the trough of a losing fight. But, fortunately, Luke's lines were cast upon the great waters, and he who fights the sea must learn to conquer, not by passionate effort, but by consistent, cool resolve. Those who worked with him feared him, and in so doing learnt the habit of h

sure on the great water, know the relative merits of the man who goes to

ng amid the universal grey of the winter night, and h

ight Nature. Luke FitzHenry rather revelled in a night such as this - the gloom, the horror, and the patent danger of it suited his moro

day, the Croonah sidled alongside the quay in the Tilbury Dock. The passengers, with their new lives before them, stumbled ashore, already forgetting the men who,

in a handwriting which Luke had almost forgotten. He turned it over with the subtl

e Croonah, has quite a reputation on the Indian route, and your fellow-officers are all gentlemen. I shall be pleased to see you

ur if you will come in dress

hat settled the matter. Luke sat down and wrote out a telegram at

s at precisely half-past seven that evening, he was consciou

er ushered him into it, and some seconds elapsed before he dis

which seemed in some indefinite way to have been put on with her evening dress. For a mome

e cried. "You d

For he was a passenger sailor, and many men

placed herself beneath the gas, inviting his inspe

. Her enemies said it reminded them of snakes. Her eyes were of a darker shade of ashen grey, verging on hazel. Her mouth was mobile, with thin lips and an expressive corner--the left-hand corner - and at this moment it suggested pert inquiry. Some people

Luke's wonder graduall

t up," he

shoulders in pr

ed that there were atoning merits. "I must say you are not polite, Luke. I do not think I wil

be Agatha!"

hat I am Agatha Ingham-B

benefit of the exquisite fit of her dress. She stood with one arm on the mantel-shelf

that keen feminine scent for a personality which leads to the ut

thought--

es

ny farther, although she certa

u are disappointed. You never expe

" he interrupted, with a

rds the door. "I hear Mrs. Harrington comi

on with quite a pleasant smile, which did not bel

Ingham-Bakers, whom she mentally set down as parasites. There is a weariness of the flesh that comes to rich women uncontrolled. They weary of their own power. Tyranny palls. Mrs. Harrington was longing to be thwarted by some o

ould have liked to be bullied. And also there was that subtle longing for the

test doubt that this was a gentleman. Nay, more, he looked distinguished. And above all, he carried himself like a sailor. So the recon

tting that lady's mental equilibrium. She had endeavoured to prevent this meeting, because she thought it was not fair to Fitz. She noted the approval with which Mrs. Harrington's

glanced impatien

Count is la

ta coming?" asked Mrs.

ndpoint of a mother she felt su

s. Harrington, wit

's dress. She crossed the room and delicately rectified some microscopic disorder of the snake-like hair.

r his dazzled eyes when they rested on Agatha. He merely came forward with his gravest smile and uttered the pleasant fictions appropriate to the

d somewhat absent-minded. Her attention was divided between an anticipatory appr

he candle shades, "that we had not seen the Count de Lloset

acqui

it is more than made good by the news that m

oked up sharply, and a few drops of soup f

in?" sh

Sp