He began by degrees to make his plans more definitely. It was no longer “if the ship were mine,” but “when she is mine.” He hugged the thought to him, fed upon it, lived with it night and day. He hoped he could honestly say he had never wished Old Featherstone’s death; but when the news of his death had come he had not been able to repress a thrill of exultation as the thought rose to the surface of his mind, “Now, at last, she will surely be mine!”
It had been the old man himself who had finally turned what had until then been no more than a vague hope into a virtual certainty.
It was on the occasion of that last dinner at Blackheath, a matter of six weeks ago, just before the attack of bronchitis that had finished the old fellow off. There he had sat in his big easy-chair by the fire,
