"Pardon! I had forgotten!"
"You won't hear again before the Persia is in, will you?"
"That will be in three weeks, will it not?"
"Yes; that will be after we are at Newport. To whose care do your letters come addressed?"
"Really, Mr. Wynkar, you are too kind. Your interest is so unexpected!"
"Let us all drink to his bon voyage," said the captain, filling my glass.
"Avec plaisir," cried Josephine, and Phil said heartily, as he poured her out a glass:
"Victor's a good fellow; he has my best wishes on land or sea."
"And mine," said Mr. Rutledge, very low.
Why was there a hush around the table as that toast was drunk? Why did a sort of shade creep over the careless mirth of the company? Not surely because they guessed that he whose health they drank was within hearing, almost, of their words, nor because they knew how fallen and how wretched he was; but because, perhaps unconsciously, the gloom on their host's face, and the misery on mine, damped for a moment their gaiety and confidence.