Thus Mr. Tredgold had babbled in his misery before he was persuaded to lie down to await news which nothing that could be done would make any quicker. He had clamoured to send out boats--any number--after Stella. He had insisted upon hiring a steamer to go out in quest of her; but telegrams had to be sent far and wide and frantic messengers to Ryde--even to Portsmouth--before he could get what he wanted. And in the meantime the night had fallen, the wind had risen, and out of that blackness and those dashing waves, which could be heard without being seen, there came no sign of the boat. Never had such a night passed over the peaceful place. There had been sailors and fishermen in danger many a time, and distracted women on the pier; but what was that to the agony of a millionaire who had been accustomed to do everything with his wealth, and now raged and foamed at the mouth because he could do nothing? What was all his wealth to him? He was as powerless as the poor mother of that sailor-boy who was lost (there were so many, so many of them), and who had not a shilling in the world. Not a shilling in the world! It was exactly as if Mr. Tredgold had come to that. What could he do with all his thousands? Oh, send out a tug from Portsmouth, send out the fastest ferry-boat from Ryde, send out the whole fleet--fishing cobles, pleasure boats--everything that was in Sliplin Harbour! Send everything, everything that had a sail or an oar, not to say a steam engine. A hundred pounds, a thousand pounds--anything to the man who would bring Stella back! The little harbour was in wild commotion with all these offers. There were not many boats, but they were all preparing; the men clattering down the rolling shingle, with women after them calling to them to take care, or not to go out in the teeth of the gale. “If you’re lost too what good will that do?” they shrieked in the wind, their hair flying like Katherine’s, but not so speechless as she was. The darkness, the flaring feeble lights, the stir and noise on the shore, with these shrieking voices breaking in, made a sort of Pandemonium unseen, taking double horror from the fact that it was almost all sound and sensation, made visible occasionally by the gleam of the moon between the flying clouds. Mr. Tredgold’s house on the cliff blazed with lights from every window, and a great pan of fire wildly blazing, sending up great shadows of black smoke, was lit on the end of the pier--everything that could be done to guide them back, to indicate the way. Nothing of that sort was done when the fishermen were battling for their lives. But what did it all matter, what was the good of it all? Millionaire and pauper stood on the same level, hopeless, tearing their hair, praying their hearts out, on the blind margin of that wild invisible sea.