"The listener farther to the left was a man of between twenty and thirty whose big form overflowed his seat, leaving only a streak of gilt wood to be seen here and there. He was wearing his best uniform- the white-lapelled blue coat, white waistcoat, breeches and stockings of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, with the silver medal of the Nile in his buttonhole-and the deep, white cuff of his gold-buttoned sleeve beat the time, while his bright blue eyes, staring from what would have been a pink-and-white face if it had not been so deeply tanned, gazed fixedly at the bow of the first violin."

Chapter 1, p. 11

"He held the letter up to the light, and there, as firm, comforting and immovable as the rock of Gibralter, he saw the Admiralty's watermark, the eminently respectable anchor of hope."

Chapter 1, p. 17

"My poor Sophie has no surgeon...