A thrilling coolness followed a first blaze of heat, and in the long respite the thoughts almost went back to winter flannels.

But at last a hot wave was telegraphed from the West, and the week before the Norumbia sailed was an anguish of burning days and breathless nights, which fused all regrets and reluctances in the hope of escape, and made the exiles of two continents long for the sea, with no care for either shore.
VI.
Their steamer was to sail early; they were up at dawn because they had scarcely lain down, and March crept out into the square for a last breath of its morning air before breakfast.

He was now eager to be gone; he had broken with habit, and he wished to put all traces of the past out of sight.

But this was curiously like all other early mornings in his consciousness, and he could not alienate himself from the wonted environment.

He stood talking on every-day terms of idle speculation with the familiar policeman, about a stray parrot in the top of one of the trees, where it screamed and clawed at the dead branch to which it clung.