Probably, also, hours ago that vessel had vanished from the eyes of men for ever.

To send out the lifeboat upon such a wild-goose chase would be to turn himself into a laughing-stock.
Still something drew his thoughts to that hidden line of reef, and the ship which might still be hanging on it, and the woman who might still be living in the ship.
It was a painful vision from which he could not free his mind.
Then there came to him an idea.

Why should he not go to the Sunk Rocks and look?
There was a light breeze off land, and with the help of the page-boy, who was sitting up, as the tide was nearing its full he could manage to launch his small sailing-boat, which by good fortune was still berthed near the beach steps.

It was a curious chance that this should be so, seeing that in most seasons she would have been by now removed to the shed a mile away, to be out of reach of possible damage from the furious winter gales.

As it happened, however, the weather remaining so open, this had not been done.