I know I am doing
right. God bless you and keep you, my dear--and your husband, and your
children! Good-by!"
He stooped and kissed her. She ran to the door to look after him. A puff
of air extinguished the candle, and the black night shut him out from
her in an instant.
Three days afterward the first-class merchantman _Deliverance_, Kirke,
commander, sailed from London for the China Sea.
CHAPTER III.
THE threatening of storm and change passed away with the night. When
morning rose over Aldborough, the sun was master in the blue heaven, and
the waves were rippling gayly under the summer breeze.
At an hour when no other visitors to the watering--place were yet astir,
the indefatigable Wragge appeared at the door of North Shingles Villa,
and directed his steps northward, with a neatly-bound copy of "Joyce's
Scientific Dialogues" in his hand. Arriving at the waste ground beyond
the houses, he descended to the beach and opened his book. The interview
of the past night had sharpened his perception of the difficulties to
be encountered in the coming enterprise. He was now doubly determined to
try the characteristic experiment at which he had hinted in his letter
to Magdalen, and to concentrate on himself--in the character of a
remarkably well-informed man--the entire interest and attention of the
formidable Mrs.
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