Beauty shall avail not, learning shall avail not, meekness shall avail not; for the fire of hell is a searching, endless, destroying--" here Mr.Dyceworthy, by plunging one oar with too much determination into the watery depths, caught a crab, as the saying is, and fell violently backward in a somewhat undignified posture.
Recovering himself slowly, he looked about him in a bewildered way, and for the first time noticed the vacant, solitary appearance of the Fjord.
Some object was missing; he realized what it was immediately--the English yacht _Eulalie_ was gone from her point of anchorage.
"Dear me!" said Mr.Dyceworthy, half aloud, "what a very sudden departure! I wonder, now, if those young men have gone for good, or whether they are coming back again?
Pleasant fellows, very pleasant! flippant, perhaps, but pleasant." And he smiled benevolently.

He had no remembrance of what had occurred, after he had emptied young Macfarlane's flask of Glenlivet; he had no idea that he had been almost carried from his garden into his parlor, and there flung on the sofa and left to sleep off the effects of his strong tipple; least of all did he dream that he had betrayed any of his intentions towards Thelma Gueldmar, or given his religious opinions with such free and undisguised candor.

Blissfully ignorant on these points, he resumed his refractory oars, and after nearly an hour of laborious effort, succeeded at last in reaching his destination.

Arrived at the little pier, he fastened up his boat, and with the lofty air of a thoroughly moral man, he walked deliberately up to the door of the _bonde's_ house.

Contrary to custom, it was closed, and the place seemed strangely silent and deserted.