Eight weeks later James Nimmo sailed into the Tay, to find his turtle-dove flown. Alarmed possibly by the unrest produced in the real property market by recent legislation, the lady had forborne to purchase the _bijou_ villa. Having no house, to spend money upon furniture was obviously a work of supererogation. Lastly, inspired possibly by a yearning for a wider field in which to exercise her undoubted talents, the affianced of James Nimmo had decided to emigrate to Canada. This decision she promptly put into execution, departing without due ostentation in the steerage of an Allan liner, and taking with her her parents, James Nimmo's savings, and a young carpenter of steady habits and good wage-earning capacity whom she had married three days previously. Six months later James Nimmo made the acquaintance of Uncle Joseph on board a P. & O. liner, homeward bound from Bombay. James was deck-steward on that voyage, and Uncle Joseph's attention was first attracted to him by the extreme coldness, not to say _hauteur_, with which he attended to the wants of seasick lady passengers. James Nimmo on his part noted with grim approval the whole-hearted fashion in which Uncle Joseph, who was a presentable bachelor of thirty-six in those days, boycotted the long row of chairs in the lee of the deckhouses, and confined himself to the smoking-room or the windward side of the ship. One hot night in the Red Sea a chance remark of Uncle Joseph's unlocked the heart and loosed the tongue of James Nimmo, and before dawn the whole of the tale of the fickle beauty of Carnoustie had been told, for the first and last time, to mortal man. At Tilbury James Nimmo resigned his post and abandoned the service of the sea, in order to follow Uncle Joseph. Since that day they had never been parted. All this had happened more than ten years ago. Philip had been added to the household at Hampstead a few days after Uncle Joseph had landed at Tilbury,--in fact, it was on Philip's account that Uncle Joseph had come home,--and from that moment he had lived and breathed in a society exclusively masculine. He still retained recollections of the period when petticoats ruled him, but they were very faint, for his nursery days had ended abruptly at the tender age of four. Sometimes, though, he had visions. He saw dimly a stout, autocratic, but on the whole good-tempered being whom he called Nanny. He saw more dimly a big silent man, who occasionally took him on his knee and fed him furtively with the tops of eggs, and made laborious conversation. And most dimly of all he saw a lady, very dainty and sweet-smelling, who always appeared to be talking. When she talked to a group of other ladies and gentlemen, she seemed to smile and sparkle like some pretty jewel. But when she was alone with the big silent man she neither smiled nor sparkled, and her voice sounded shrill and hard. Philip had a vague recollection that on these occasions the room always seemed to grow darker.