seemed to dawdle as it never dawdled before. At length we reached the terminus. I eagerly scanned the few people on the platform as we entered the station, and my heart sank when I saw she was not there. Then I remembered that on French railways friends of passengers are not, as a rule, allowed on the platform, and my hopes rose again. They were soon dashed, for there was no Clara for me in the waiting-rooms or at the entrance.
A dim sense of calamity—unknown, and the more terrible for being unknown—took possession of me. I hurried across Paris to the "Nord," reached Calais in due course, crossed to Dover and made my way to London, which I reached late at night. The next day, at nine in the morning, I hurried to Mrs. Selby's house in Oxford Square. I rang the bell, and it was answered by a maid-servant in deep black. I asked for Mrs. Selby, but so inarticulately that the girl did not understand me. I pulled myself together, and repeated the question. The girl stammered awkwardly. Had I not heard? No! I had heard nothing; was anything wrong? The French ship in which Mrs. Selby and Clara had sailed from Bombay had been lost—as it was supposed—in a hurricane between Bombay and Aden, and all souls drowned.
I staggered as from a strong man's blow. I remember nothing until I found myself lying on the sofa in the dining-room, tended by an elderly gentleman, Mrs. Selby's brother and administrator. He, of course, did not know me; still less did he know of my relation towards his dead niece. I told him all, and he treated me with the greatest kindness. He could give me no
