Well, Pauline thought, the new phase of circumstances need not cause much alteration in the line of conduct she had marked out for herself. The girl lying there was to her in a different position from what she had imagined. So far as she was concerned, there was no question of revenge now, but it would be as well to keep watch over her, and use her as a tool if occasion should arise. The interest which Martin Gurwood felt in Alice would induce him to keep up his acquaintance with her, and to be en rapport with Martin Gurwood was Pauline's fixed intention. Over him she had obtained a strong influence, which she did not intend to give up, while the knowledge that she continued to be acquainted with all that was going on would deprive Martin, or those friends of his of whom he thought so much--this Mr. Statham for instance--from attempting to interfere with the exercise of her power over Mrs. Calverley. And now, for the first time since she had waited for her husband at the Lymington station, Pauline began to believe that the conjecture which she had seen printed in the newspapers had some foundation, and that Tom Durham was really dead. Hitherto she had imagined that he had deceived her, as he had deceived the rest of the world; that the tale which he told her of his intention to dive from the steamer at night, to swim to the shore, and to meet her the next morning, had been merely trumped up in order to turn her off the scent, and to prevent her from tracing him in his flight with the woman of whom he had taken such an affectionate farewell at the Southampton railway station. But the identity of that woman with Alice Claxton being now settled, and it being made perfectly clear that she was Tom Durham's sister, all motive for that worthy's concealment of himself was done away with. There was no reason, so far as Pauline knew, why her husband should not acquaint her with his whereabouts, while there was every reason to believe that, were he on the face of the earth, he would make himself known, if it were only for the sake of reclaiming his two thousand pounds. He must have been drowned, she thought, his strength must have failed him, and he must have gone down when almost within reach of the shore, to which he was hastening. Drowned, dead, lost to her for ever! Not lost as she had once imagined him, seduced by the wiles and fascinations of another woman into temporary forgetfulness of her, for then there was a chance, and more than a chance, almost a certainty, that when those wiles and fascinations ceased to charm he would miss the clear brain and the ready hand on which he had so long relied, and come back to claim their aid once more--not lost in that way, but totally lost, drowned, dead, passed away for ever.