On the evening of the third day, Marmaduke, who had kept aloof for several hours, came and stood by his sister-in-law. She was leaning at the stern, looking shorewards at two columns of rock, which the watery wear of ages had parted from the cliffs, leaving them set upright in the sea, a little distance from one another, with the breakers boiling between. “There's 'Old Harry and his wife,' as the Dorset people call them. We are near home now, Agatha.” “Home!” She gasped the word in an agony, and turned her face again seawards--towards the grey desolate line where the Channel melted away. “The steamer can't run on much longer without putting in-shore,” said Duke, after an interval. Agatha almost shrieked; “You are not going to land? We have been out such a little--little while! And you said yourself the boats would live a long time in the open Channel.” “But that was three days ago.” “Three days--oh, Heaven!--three days.” And the black, black cloud fell over her; the near vision of an existence wherein _he_ was not--the going home a widow--or worse, because she could never have the certainty of widowhood. To be incessantly watching by day, and starting up at night, with the thought that he was come! Never to know when, where, or in what manner he died; to have no last blessing--no last kiss! At the moment, Agatha would have given her whole future life--nay, her immortal soul--to cling for one minute round her husband's neck and tell him how she loved him--with the one perfect love which nothing now could ever alter, weaken, or estrange. Mr. Dugdale moved aside. He knew that for this burst of anguish there was no consolation. After a time, he came and said those few soothing words which are all that people can say, without being those “miserable comforters” who only torture the more. Even then, in that last moment of anguish, there was power in the good and soothing influence so peculiar to Marmaduke Dugdale. Agatha grew calmer--at least more passive. Soon, she saw that the little steamer's head was turned to the shore. A convulsion passed over her, but she did not rebel. “There is a faint hope even yet,” said Duke, with a melancholy voice that almost gave the lie to his words. “They may have drifted safe ashore somewhere--though it would be almost a miracle. Or they may have been carried far out to sea, and been picked up by some outward-bound ship. It's just a chance--but”-- Agatha understood that “but” Nothing but strong conviction would have forced it from her brother-in-law's lips. Her last hope died. An hour or two more they spent in gliding up the narrow channel of that salt-water swamp, which at high tide appeared so glittering from the Thornhurst road. When approached, it was a muddy chaos, desolate as an uninhabited world.