From where we stood we could see the smoke of the steamers as they ploughed along the busy water-way which leads to Belfast.
"Is it not magnificent ?" Gabriel cried, clasping her hands round my arm.
"Ah, John, why are we not free to sail away over these waves together, and leave all our troubles behind us on the shore ?" "And what are the troubles which you would leave behind you, dear one ?" I asked.

"May I not know them, and help you to bear them ?" "I have no secrets from you, John," she answered, "Our chief trouble is, as you may guess, our poor father's strange behaviour.

Is it not a sad thing for all of us that a man who has played such a distinguished part in the world should skulk from one obscure corner of the country to another, and should defend himself with locks and barriers as though he were a common thief flying from justice?
This is a trouble, John, which it is out of your power to alleviate." "But why does he do it, Gabriel ?" I asked.
"I cannot tell," she answered frankly.

"I only know that he imagines some deadly danger to be hanging over his head, and that this danger was incurred by him during his stay in India.

What its nature may be I have no more idea than you have." "Then your brother has," I remarked.