Hilda, with her intuitive certainty, felt sure he would come.
A steamer, two steamers, three steamers, sailed, and still no Sebastian.
I began to think he must have made up his mind to go back some other way.

But Hilda was confident, so I waited patiently.

At last one morning I dropped in, as I had often done before, at the office of one of the chief steamship companies.

It was the very morning when a packet was to sail.

"Can I see the list of passengers on the Vindhya ?" I asked of the clerk, a sandy-haired Englishman, tall, thin, and sallow.
The clerk produced it.
I scanned it in haste.