CHANCE--A TALE IN TWO PARTS


Those that hold that all things are governed by Fortune had not erred,
had they not persisted there

SIR THOMAS BROWNE

TO SIR HUGH CLIFFORD, K.C.M.G. WHO STEADFAST FRIENDSHIP IS RESPONSIBLE
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF THESE PAGES




PART I--THE DAMSEL


CHAPTER ONE--YOUNG POWELL AND HIS CHANCE


I believe he had seen us out of the window coming off to dine in the
dinghy of a fourteen-ton yawl belonging to Marlow my host and skipper. We
helped the boy we had with us to haul the boat up on the landing-stage
before we went up to the riverside inn, where we found our new
acquaintance eating his dinner in dignified loneliness at the head of a
long table, white and inhospitable like a snow bank.

The red tint of his clear-cut face with trim short black whiskers under a
cap of curly iron-grey hair was the only warm spot in the dinginess of
that room cooled by the cheerless tablecloth. We knew him already by