By fixing his eyes obstinately on the ground, which gave him an air
of reflective sadness, Renouard managed to recover his self-
possession. He used it to keep his voice in a low key and to
measure his words on the great subject. And he took care with a
great inward effort to make them reasonable without giving them a
discouraging complexion. For he did not want the quest to be given
up, since it would mean her going away with her two attendant grey-
heads to the other side of the world.

He was asked to come again, to come often and take part in the
counsels of all these people captivated by the sentimental
enterprise of a declared love. On taking Miss Moorsom's hand he
looked up, would have liked to say something, but found himself
voiceless, with his lips suddenly sealed. She returned the
pressure of his fingers, and he left her with her eyes vaguely
staring beyond him, an air of listening for an expected sound, and
the faintest possible smile on her lips. A smile not for him,
evidently, but the reflection of some deep and inscrutable thought.



CHAPTER IV



He went on board his schooner. She lay white, and as if suspended,
in the crepuscular atmosphere of sunset mingling with the ashy
gleam of the vast anchorage. He tried to keep his thoughts as
sober, as reasonable, as measured as his words had been, lest they
should get away from him and cause some sort of moral disaster.