the Ibex as she threaded her way swiftly among the br

yond them lay a filmy blue whaleback of an island whic

hin reasonable limits, all th

s of life, and then decide on this path or that, and pride ourselves on the exercise of our high prerogative as free agents,-the result, when we look back, bears in upon our hearts the mighty fact that a higher mind than our own has been quiet

nce been seeking words strong enough in which to paint its charms-that forced its name to the front when he stood

e remembered Adam Black murmuring softly, as they sat smoking at the Travellers' one night, shortly after that memorable dinner

had always somehow conjured up in his mind the image of a bleak, inaccessible rock set in a stormy sea, where no one lived if he could possibly find shelter elsewhere,-an Ultima Thule, difficult of

of Queen Mary by reason of loss. Surely on John Graeme's heart the name of Sark may hope to find itself in living

tmanteau, knowing only that he was going away somewhere out of t

eful to him at the moment. He craved only S

pt he had been at work upon until more pressing matters intervened. He felt, indeed, no slightest inclin

e was going away for a time. He did not tell her where, for the simple reason tha

oo. He told her to keep all his letters till he sent for them. He had no importunate correspondents, his next book was as good as placed, and all h

and he said to himself, somewhat bitterly, and

low roll in it, was very soothing; and the first tremulous hints of the dawn, and the

ed to him strongly. Just the kind of place, he said to himself, for a hea

ch a quaint medley of gray weathered walls and mellowed red roofs, from which the thin blue smoke of early fires crept lazily up to mingle with the haze above! Such restful banks of greenery! Such a s

a hearty appetite at an hotel on the front. Come! He was not as

he workaday bustle of the quays renewed his desire for the solitary places, and he set out to fin

tly he came to an arrangement with an elderly party in blue, with a red-weathered face and grizzl

a canny look which conveyed to Graeme nothing more than a simple and

d Graeme, with

ial experience of the little island went far towards the confirmat

n, and they strolled away along th