_Tintoretto_ on its way home. Ponsonby missing. Stephen read the dispatch several times before he quite understood its significance.

Pedro Lopez was his South American friend, who had set on foot the Fuegian expedition and applied to Harmouth for a botanist; the _Tintoretto_ was the vessel furnished by the Argentine Government. The cable message had gone to Harmouth and been repeated to New York, probably by Stephen's butler. The first effect of evil tidings is apt to be superficial.

We receive a mental impression rather than a shock to the heart. We are for the moment spectators of our own misfortunes, as if the blow had produced a paralysis to the feelings, leaving the intellect clear. Stephen went back to his own room conscious of no emotion except intense curiosity as to what had become of Simeon, though, perhaps, far back in his mind anxiety was settling down to its work of torture.