She talked at times as if it were her ideal home, and showed many tastes which might well be vestiges of early Oriental impressions.

She made herself a rude hammock,--such as are often used in hot climates,--and swung it between two elms.

Here she would lie in the hot summer days, and fan herself with the sandal-wood fan her friend in India had sent her,--the perfume of which, the women said, seemed to throw her into day-dreams, which were almost like trances.
These circumstances gave a general direction to his ideas, which were presently fixed more exactly by two circumstances which he learned for himself and kept to himself; for he had no idea of making a hue and cry, and yet he did not mean that Myrtle Hazard should get away if he could help it.
The first fact was this.

He found among the copies of the city newspaper they took at The Poplars a recent number from which a square had been cut out.

He procured another copy of this paper of the same date, and found that the piece cut out was an advertisement to the effect that the A 1 Ship Swordfish, Captain Hawkins, was to sail from Boston for Calcutta, on the 20th of June.
The second fact was the following.