After this they dropped into desultory conversation, curiously different from the intimate talk which passed between them in the boat. Then they had been in danger, and at times in the very shadow of Death; a condition that favours confidences since those who stand beneath his wings no longer care to hide their hearts. The reserves which so largely direct our lives are lifted, their necessity is past, and in the face of the last act of Nature, Nature asserts herself. Who cares to continue to play a part when the audience has dispersed, the curtain is falling, and the pay-box has put up its shutters? Now, very unexpectedly these two were on the stage again, and each assumed the allotted role. Stella admired the room; whereon Morris set to work to explain its characteristics, to find, to his astonishment, that Miss Fregelius had more knowledge of architecture than he could boast. He pointed out certain details, alleging them to be Elizabethan work, to which age they had been credited for generations, whereon she suggested and, indeed, proved, that some of them dated from the earlier years of Henry VIII., and that some were late Jacobean. While Morris was wondering how he could combat this revolutionary opinion, the servant brought in a telegram. It was from Mary, at Beaulieu, and ran: “Had not heard that you were drowned, but am deeply thankful that you are saved. Why did you pass a night at sea in this weather? Is it a riddle? Grieved to say my father not so well. Best love, and please keep on shore. MARY.” At first Morris was angry with this rather flippant message; then he laughed. As he had already discovered, in fact, his anxieties had been quite groundless. The page-boy, Thomas, it appeared, when questioned, had given the inquirers to understand that his master had gone out to fish, taking his breakfast with him. Later, on his non-appearance, he amended this statement, suggesting out of the depths of a fertile imagination, that he had sailed down to Northwold, where he meant to pass the night. Therefore, although the cook, a far-seeing woman who knew her Thomas and hated him, had experienced pangs of doubt, nobody else troubled the least, and even the small community of Monksland remained profoundly undisturbed as to the fate of one of its principal inhabitants. So little is an unsympathetic world concerned in our greatest and most particular adventures! A birth, a marriage, an inquest, a scandal—these move it superficially, for the rest it has no enthusiasm to spare. This cold neglect of events which had seemed to him so important reacted upon Morris, who, now that he had got over his chill and fatigue, saw them in their proper proportions. A little adventure in an open boat at sea which had ended without any mishap, was not remarkable, and might even be made to appear ridiculous. So the less said about it, especially to Mary, whose wit he feared, the better.