As he delivered himself of these words Sir Wilfrid showed in the hatch handing Miss Jennings up the ladder, and my companion started away on a lonely quarterdeck walk. The girl looked very grave and worried; my cousin, gaunt and haggard, with a fire in his weak, protruding eyes that was like the light of fever or of famine. He grasped my hand and held it whilst he sent a look round. I spoke lightly of the fine breeze and the yacht’s pace and the good runs we should be making if this weather held, finding something in his instant’s assumption of a hearty demeanour, a sort of strained liveliness far more affecting than his melancholy, that was like a request to me not to venture upon any sort of personal inquiries. He called to Finn to know the speed, then said, ‘Charles, give Laura your arm, will you? There’s too much wind to sit. She looks a little pale, but a few turns will give roses to her cheeks. My head aches, and I must keep below out of this air till I am better.’ Miss Jennings took my arm, for there would happen a frequent lee swing with a rise of the bow and a long slanting rush to the whole weight of the cloths till you could have spooned up the white water over the side with your hand that rendered walking difficult and fatiguing; very soon I placed chairs under the weather bulwarks, snugging her with rugs and shawls, and in the comparative calm of that shelter we were able to converse. ‘Wilfrid looks very ill this morning,’ said I. ‘He has had another warning,’ she answered. ‘The deuce he has. When?’ ‘Last night.’ ‘What sort of a warning is it this time?’ ‘Precisely the same as the first one,’ she replied. ‘I am grieved but not surprised,’ said I. ‘I very much fear he is going from bad to worse. I still hold with the views I expressed last evening. A time may, nay, a time must come, when you yourself, Miss Jennings, ardent as is your sisterly desire, will look to me for some resolution that shall preserve us and himself too from the schemes of a growing distemper.’ She was silent. ‘Did he tell you,’ I continued, ‘the nature of the warning?’ ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘In confidence? If so, of course----’ ‘No,’ she interrupted, ‘he came from his cabin after breakfast when you had gone on deck, and I saw at once that something was very wrong with him. I was determined to get at the truth and questioned him persistently, and then he told me all.’ ‘_All!_’ exclaimed I, opening my eyes, for the word seemed to indicate some very large matter lying behind his confession. ‘What he has seen,’ she said, ‘for two nights running has been a mysterious writing upon his cabin wall.’ ‘Humph!’ said I. ‘Do you remember, Mr. Monson, that he told us of a dream in which he had seen a boat with a sort of sign-board in it on which was inscribed the word Monday in letters of flame? Well, he sees the same sort of fiery scrawl now in his cabin.’ ‘What is the nature of the message?’ ‘He says that the words are, “RETURN TO BABY!”’