ship and restless.

Luke was standing now like a statue--black and gleaming amid the
universal grey of the winter night, and his deep eyes, cat-like,
pierced the surrounding gloom.

Here was a man militant. A man who must needs be fighting
something, and Fate, with unusual foresight, had placed him in a
position to fight Nature. Luke FitzHenry rather revelled in a night
such as this--the gloom, the horror, and the patent danger of it
suited his morose, combative nature. He loved danger and difficulty
with the subtle form of love which a fighting man experiences for a
relentless foe.

From light to light he pushed his intrepid way through the darkness
and the bewildering intricacies of the Downs, and in due time, in
the full sunlight of the next day, the Croonah sidled alongside the
quay in the Tilbury Dock. The passengers, with their new lives
before them, stumbled ashore, already forgetting the men who, smoke-
begrimed and weary, had carried these lives within their hands
during the last month or more. They crowded down the gangway and
left Luke to go to his cabin.

There were two letters lying on the little table. One from Fitz at
Mahon, the other in a handwriting which Luke had almost forgotten.
He turned it over with the subtle smile of a man who has a grudge
against women. But he opened it before the other.

"DEAR LUKE,--I am glad to hear from Fitz that you are making your
way in the Merchant Service. He tells me that your steamer, the