In a few days she received a reply, studiously polite and cold.

This persistent injustice mortified her at last. She said to herself,
"Does she think his departure was no loss to ME? It was to her
interests, as well as his, I sacrificed my own selfish wishes. I will
write to her no more."

This resolution she steadily maintained. It was shaken for a moment,
when she heard, by a side wind, that Mrs. Staines was fast approaching
the great pain and peril of women. Then she wavered. But no. She prayed
for her by name in the Liturgy, but she troubled her no more.

This state of things lasted some six weeks, when she received a letter
from her cousin Tadcaster, close on the heels of his last, to which she
had replied as I have indicated. She knew his handwriting, and opened it
with a smile.

That smile soon died off her horror-stricken face. The letter ran
thus:--


TRISTAN D'ACUNHA, Jan. 5.

DEAR CICELY,--A terrible thing has just happened. We signalled a raft,
with a body on it, and poor Dr. Staines leaned out of the port-hole,
and fell overboard. Three boats were let down after him; but it all went
wrong, somehow, or it was too late. They could never find him, he was
drowned; and the funeral service was read for the poor fellow.