Chersonese, who predicted that every penny invested would be returned
with a shilling to boot.

As the year wore on Sarah became more and more disturbed in her mind.
Eric was always at hand to make love to her in his own persistent,
masterful manner, and to this she did not object. Only one letter came
from Abel, to say that his venture had proved successful, and that he
had sent some two hundred pounds to the bank at Bristol, and was trading
with fifty pounds still remaining in goods for China, whither the _Star
of the Sea_ was bound and whence she would return to Bristol. He
suggested that Eric's share of the venture should be returned to him
with his share of the profits. This proposition was treated with anger
by Eric, and as simply childish by Sarah's mother.

More than six months had since then elapsed, but no other letter had
come, and Eric's hopes which had been dashed down by the letter from
Pahang, began to rise again. He perpetually assailed Sarah with an 'if!'
If Abel did not return, would she then marry him? If the 11th April went
by without Abel being in the port, would she give him over? If Abel had
taken his fortune, and married another girl on the head of it, would she
marry him, Eric, as soon as the truth were known? And so on in an
endless variety of possibilities. The power of the strong will and the
determined purpose over the woman's weaker nature became in time
manifest. Sarah began to lose her faith in Abel and to regard Eric as a
possible husband; and a possible husband is in a woman's eye different
to all other men. A new affection for him began to arise in her breast,
and the daily familiarities of permitted courtship furthered the growing
affection. Sarah began to regard Abel as rather a rock in the road of
her life, and had it not been for her mother's constantly reminding her
of the good fortune already laid by in the Bristol Bank she would have