Lionel himself hardly knew why he wished to return home. He felt impelled by an unseen influence. Like the hero of some ghost story who at Christmas had seen by his bedside the face of a loved one at home, and a beckoning finger which haunted him day and night until he set foot on board a home-bound ship, Lionel Hammerton could think of nothing but returning home. There was something wrong, he could not rest, he must go home and see the old country once more ere he settled down in India. For days and weeks he struggled against this instinctive longing to re-cross the ocean. That vignette which Arthur Phillips had painted hung by his bed, inside those mosquito curtains! Had this aught to do with his desire to return home? Did he repent of his neglect towards Amy? Did he love her after all? Did the memory of those happy days at Barton torture him with remorse? Or had that idea of Amy’s mercenary motives evaporated in presence of that honest and noble face, about which he had talked so rapturously in the artist’s studio? If so, why did he not write to her and say so, or send some message to her by Arthur Phillips? This would have been easy enough, and sufficient too for Amy, who would have caught at the merest straw that offered a prospect of regaining his love. They passed each other on the sea, the two Indian ships--one homeward-bound with Hammerton on board, the other on its way to Calcutta with letters for him, and full particulars of his brother’s marriage. What a world of trouble might have been spared to him and others, had he yielded at once to those home-promptings, or waited until those letters and papers had reached their destination!