Marway was a fine, handsome fellow, whose manners, where he saw reason, soon won him favour, and two of the young men in the office were his ready slaves. Every moment of the next day Clare was watched. Marway had laid his plans, and would forestall frustration. Clare could hardly do anything before the dinner-hour, but Marway would make assurance double sure. At anchor in the roads lay a certain frigate, whose duty it was to sail round the islands, like a duck about her floating brood. Among the young officers on board were two with whom Marway was intimate. He had met them the night before, and they had together laid a plot for nullifying Clare’s interference with Marway’s scheme--which his friends also had reason to wish successful, for Marway owed them both money. Clare had come in the way of all three. Now little Ann was a guardian cherub to the object of their enmity, and he and she must first of all be separated. Clare had asked leave of Miss Shotover to take the child to Noah’s ark, as she called it, that evening, and Marway had learned it from her: Clare’s going would favour their plan, but the child’s presence would render it impracticable. One thing in their favour was, that Mr. Shotover was from home. If Clare had resolved on telling him rather than the admiral, he could not until the next evening, and that would give them abundant time. On the other hand, having him watched, they could easily prevent him from finding the admiral. But Clare had indeed come to the just conclusion that his master had the first right to know what he had to tell. His object was not the exposure of Marway, but the protection of his master’s daughter: he would, therefore, wait Mr. Shotover’s return. He said to himself also, that Marway would thereby have a chance to bethink himself, and, like Hamlet’s uncle, “try what repentance can.” As soon as he had put the bank in order for the night, he went to find his little companion, and take her to Noah’s ark. The child had been sitting all the morning and afternoon in a profound stillness of expectation; but the hour came and passed, and Clare did not appear. “You never, never, never came,” she said to him afterward. “I had to go to bed, and the beasts went away.” It was many long weeks before she told him this, or her solemn little visage smiled again. He went to the little room off the hall, where he almost always found her waiting for him, dressed to go. She was not there. Nobody came. He grew impatient, and ran in his eagerness up the front stair. At the top he met the butler coming from the drawing-room--a respectable old man, who had been in the family as long as his master. “Pardon me, Mr. Porson,” said the butler, who was especially polite to Clare, recognizing in him the ennoblement of his own order, “but it is against the rules for any of the gentlemen below to come up this staircase.”