Joanna Jolliffe sat by the fire, and every gust of wind caused her a cold thrill.

She had always feared and detested the sea; to her it was a treacherous, restless, slimy creature, glorying in the griefs of women.

'Still,' she said, 'they _must_ come!' She recalled to her mind that Shadrach had said before starting that if they returned safe and sound, with success crowning their enterprise, he would go as he had gone after his shipwreck, and kneel with his sons in the church, and offer sincere thanks for their deliverance.

She went to church regularly morning and afternoon, and sat in the most forward pew, nearest the chancel-step.

Her eyes were mostly fixed on that step, where Shadrach had knelt in the bloom of his young manhood: she knew to an inch the spot which his knees had pressed twenty winters before; his outline as he had knelt, his hat on the step beside him.