"We will go to-morrow to inquire after a passenger or sailor who was on board a sailing-vessel, nationality unknown, which happened to be off Havana in a heavy sea on October 20, ten years ago." "I know it's absurd," said Roger, "but I can't help it.

I never seemed so near my brother before.

I should despise myself if I sat idle here." So it happened that, just when Maxfield was preparing in a quiet way to celebrate the coming of age of the heir; just as the gloom which had followed on Captain Oliphant's tragic death was beginning to lift a little and allow Tom and Jill decorously to think of football; just as Rosalind was beginning to make up her mind that she was not destined for ever to teach the elements of art and science to the Vicarage children; just when everything seemed to be settling down for the last scene of the drama, Roger and his tutor vanished once more on their familiar wild-goose chase.
Dr Brandram grumbled; the county gentry shook their heads; Mr Pottinger breathed again.

No one thought well of the expedition; some went so far as to make a jest of it.
Roger cared nothing for what people thought.

With Armstrong to back him, with Rosalind to bid him a brave God-speed, with his own stout heart to buoy him up, and with his lost brother only ten years distant, he could afford to start in good cheer, and let the world think what it liked.
But the cheer was destined to failure.