A perfect little craft awaited him. She was painted white and furnished with teak. Her brasses and machinery glittered; the engines and steering wheel were set forward, while aft of the cabins and saloon an awning was rigged over the stern. The solitary sailor who controlled the launch was in the act of furling this protection against the sun as Mark descended to the water; and while the man did so, Brendon's eyes brightened, for a passenger already occupied the boat: a woman sat there and he saw Jenny Pendean. She wore black and he found, as he leaped aboard and greeted her, that her mourning attire was an echo to her heart. That had happened which convinced the young wife that all hope must be abandoned; she knew that she was a widow, for the letter in her uncle's possession told her so. She greeted the detective kindly and was glad that he had responded to her invitation, but Mark soon found that her attitude of mind had changed. She now exhibited an extreme listlessness and profound melancholy. He told her that a letter from himself had gone to her at Princetown and he asked her for information respecting the communication received from Captain Redmayne; but she was not responsive. "My uncle will tell you what there is to tell," she said. "It appears that your original suspicion has proved correct. My husband has lost his precious life at the hands of a madman." "Yet it seems incredible, Mrs. Pendean, that such an afflicted creature, if alive, should still be evading the general search. Can you tell me from where this letter came? We ought to have heard of it instantly." "So I told my Uncle Bendigo." "Is he sure that it really does come from his brother?" "Yes; there is no doubt about that. The letter was posted in Plymouth. But please do not ask me about it, Mr. Brendon. I do not want to think of it." "I hope you are keeping well; and I know you are being brave." "I am alive," she said, "but my life has none the less ended." "You must not think or feel so. Let me say a thing that comforted me in the mouth of another when I lost my mother. It was an old clergyman who said it. 'Think what the dead would wish and try to please them.' It doesn't sound much; but if you consider, it is helpful." The boat was speedy and she soon slipped out between the historic castles that stood on either bank of the entrance to the harbour. Mrs. Pendean spoke. "All this loveliness and peace seem to make my heart more sore. When people suffer, they should go where nature suffers too--to bleak, sad regions." "You must occupy yourself. You must try to lose yourself in work--in working your fingers to the bone if need be. There is nothing like mental and physical toil at a time of suffering." "That is only a drug. You might as well drink, or take opium. I wouldn't run away from my grief if I could. I owe it to the dead." "You are not a coward. You must live and make the world happier for your life."