The insurance held good, of course, and there simply _must_ be some sort of tidings of the _Andromeda_ to hand before the end of September.

Yet things had gone wrong, desperately wrong, and he was quaking with the belief that there was worse in store.
He began to read his letters.

They were mostly in the same vein, duns, more or less active.

His managing clerk entered.
"There's an offer of 5s.6d.Cardiff to Bilbao and Bilbao to the Tyne for the _Hellespont_.

It is better than nothing.