‘I am stupid to feel so nervous. I dare say I am as passionately anxious as Wilfrid to see my sister in this vessel safe--and separated from--from’--she faltered and quickly added, bringing her hands together and locking them, ‘but I dread the moment to arrive when the “Shark” will be reported in sight.’ ‘Well, if we _are_ to pick up that craft,’ said I, ‘we shall do so and then there’ll be an end on’t. But I give you my word, Miss Jennings, the ocean looks a mighty big place from that bit of a stick up there.’ ‘Too big for this chase?’ ‘Too big I fear to give Wilfrid the chance he wants.’ She sent a bright glance at the topgallant yard and said, ‘Does not that great height make you feel dizzy?’ ‘Ay, as wine does. There is an intoxication as of ether in the air up there. Oh, Miss Jennings, if I could only manage to get you on to that yard--see how near to heaven it is! You would then be able not only to say that you looked like an angel, but that you felt like one.’ She laughed prettily and turned as if to invite me to walk. After a bit I spoke of the squall last night. It had not disturbed her. Then I told her of Wilfrid’s melancholy perturbation, on which her face grew grave and her air thoughtful. ‘He did not tell you the nature of the warning?’ she inquired. ‘No. It evidently had reference to his baby. I wished to ascertain whether it was a voice or a vision--though I really don’t know _why_; for an hallucination is an hallucination all the world over, and it signifies little whether it be a sheeted essence to affect the eye or a string of airy syllables to affright the ear.’ ‘I am sorry, I am sorry,’ she exclaimed anxiously; ‘it is a bad symptom, I fear. Yet it ought not to surprise one. The shock was terrible--so recent too! Scarcely a fortnight ago he felt safe and happy in his wife’s love and faith----’ ‘Maybe,’ I interrupted, ‘but I wouldn’t be too sure though. When I last met him--I mean somewhile before he came to ask me to join him in this trip--his manner was very clouded, I thought, when he spoke of his wife. I fancy even then suspicion was something more than a seed. But still, as you say, it is all desperately recent, and it certainly is a sort of business to play havoc with such a mind as his. Did you ever hear of his having warnings or seeing visions before?’ ‘Never.’ ‘I asked his valet that question just now, and he told me he did not know that his master heard “woices,” but he believed he was troubled with “wisions,” as he called them.’ ‘Wilfrid has been very secret then. My sister spoke much to me of the oddness of his character, made more of it indeed than ever I could witness,--but then one understands why, now,’ she exclaimed with an angry toss of her head. ‘But she never once hinted at his suffering from delusions of the kind you name. How should his man know then? Wilfrid is not a person to be so very confidential as all that with his servant. I never liked Muffin, and I believe he is a story-teller.’