for the voyage; at the same time his fancy played with the question
whether that uncouth, melancholy waitress had found a moment to wash her
face before hurrying to fetch his coffee. He amused himself by
contrasting her sloven dejection with the brisk neatness of the service
at St. Johnswort; but through all he never lost the awe, the sense of
responsibility which he bore to the vision vouchsafed him, doubtless for
some reason and to some end that it behooved him to divine.

He found a yesterday's paper in the office of the hotel, and read it till
he began to drowse over it, when he pulled himself up with a sharp jerk.
He discovered that it was now six o'clock, and he thought if he could
walk about for an hour he might return to St. Johnswort, and worry
through the remaining hour till breakfast somehow. He was still framing
in his thoughts some sort of statement concerning the apparition which he
should make when the largest number of guests had got together at the
table, with a fine question whether he should take them between the
cantaloupe and the broiled chicken, or wait till they had come to the
corn griddle-cakes, which St. John's cook served of a filigree perfection
in homage to the good old American breakfast ideal. There would be more
women, if he waited, and he should need the sympathy and countenance of
women; his story would be wanting in something of its supreme effect
without the electrical response of their keener nerves.




II.


When Hewson came up to the cottage he was sensible of a certain agitation