The air is heavy with brine; you can't sleep at night for its oppression.

Well, I was sitting in the verandah on the first floor of the palace about ten o'clock at night, looking out over the harbour and the distillation works, and wondering whether it was worth while to go to bed at all, when a servant told me that a man, who refused to give his name, wished particularly to see me.
The man was Feversham.

There was only a lamp burning in the verandah, and the night was dark, so that I did not recognise him until he was close to me." And at once Ethne interrupted.
"How did he look ?" Willoughby wrinkled his forehead and opened his eyes wide.
"Really, I do not know," he said doubtfully.

"Much like other men, I suppose, who have been a year or two in the Soudan, a trifle overtrained and that sort of thing." "Never mind," said Ethne, with a sigh of disappointment.

For five years she had heard no word of Harry Feversham.