service I had performed. 'That first half of your father's speech was
the most pathetic thing I ever heard!' I had not shared his privilege,
and could not say. The remark was current that a great deal was true of
what had been said of the Fitzs. My father leaned heavily on my arm with
the step and bent head of an ancient pensioner of the Honourable City
Company. He was Julia Bulsted's charge, and I was on board the foreign
vessel weighing anchor from England before dawn of Janet's marriage-day.




CHAPTER LVI

CONCLUSION

The wind was high that morning. The rain came in gray rings, through
which we worked on the fretted surface of crumbling seas, heaving up and
plunging, without an outlook.

I remember having thought of the barque Priscilla as I watched our lithe
Dalmatians slide along the drenched decks of the Verona frigate. At
night it blew a gale. I could imagine it to have been sent
providentially to brush the torture of the land from my mind, and make me
feel that men are trifles.

What are their passions, then? The storm in the clouds--even more short-
lived than the clouds.

I philosophized, but my anguish was great.