CHAPTER XXXVI.
I.
It happened that Martin returned to New York, as he had come, on the St. Buryan. The ship was haunted with the phantoms of Leora dreaming, of Sondelius shouting on the bridge.
And on the St. Buryan was the country-club Miss Gwilliam who had offended Sondelius.
She had spent the winter importantly making notes on native music in Trinidad and Caracas; at least in planning to make notes. She saw Martin come aboard at Blackwater, and pertly noted the friends who saw him off—two Englishmen, one puffy, one rangy, and a dry-looking Scotsman.
"Your friends all seem to be British," she enlightened him, when she had claimed him as an old friend.
"Yes."
"You've spent the winter here."
"Yes."
"Hard luck to be caught by the quarantine. But I told you you were silly to go asho
