“Why do you complain?” asked Bickley. “Probably it is quite true, though that we could never ascertain without visiting the lady’s home.” “If I could afford it,” exclaimed Bastin with rising anger, “I should like to go there and expose this vile traducer of my cloth.” “So should I,” answered Bickley, “and expose these introducers of consumption, measles and other European diseases, to say nothing of gin, among an innocent and Arcadian people.” “How can you call them innocent, Bickley, when they murder and eat missionaries?” “I dare say we should all eat a missionary, Bastin, if we were hungry enough,” was the answer, after which something occurred to change the conversation. But I kept the book and read it as a neutral observer, and came to the conclusion that these South Sea Islands, a land where it was always afternoon, must be a charming place, in which perhaps the stars of the Tropics and the scent of the flowers might enable one to forget a little, or at least take the edge off memory. Why should I not visit them and escape another long and dreary English winter? No, I could not do so alone. If Bastin and Bickley were there, their eternal arguments might amuse me. Well, why should they not come also? When one has money things can always be arranged. The idea, which had its root in this absurd conversation, took a curious hold on me. I thought of it all the evening, being alone, and that night it re-arose in my dreams. I dreamed that my lost Natalie appeared to me and showed me a picture. It was of a long, low land, a curving shore of which the ends were out of the picture, whereon grew tall palms, and where great combers broke upon gleaming sand. Then the picture seemed to become a reality and I saw Natalie herself, strangely changeful in her aspect, strangely varying in face and figure, strangely bright, standing in the mouth of a pass whereof the little bordering cliffs were covered with bushes and low trees, whose green was almost hid in lovely flowers. There in my dream she stood, smiling mysteriously, and stretched out her arms towards me. As I awoke I seemed to hear her voice, repeating her dying words: “Go where you seem called to go, far away. Oh! the wonderful place in which you will find me, not knowing that you have found me.”