All present felt a shudder pass over them, as they realized the
certainty of his return. However courteous it would have been for them
to have hidden their displeasure and to have extended their greetings to
him, not one came forward. The loss of their fortune was too distasteful
to them; the awakening from a happy dream, from a life of joyous
forgetfulness of right and duty, to a life of hard work was too
revolting for them. Mr. Bond had been obliged to seat himself to recover
his strength. Some swooned and had to be carried out.

The noble George Acton had not for one moment thought that his entrance
would have caused his relations such a shock. So he withdrew to another
room. Then the questions were heard: "Do we sleep or dream? Was it
really he, or was it an apparition?"

The heirs could not understand how George Acton, who was considered as
dead by everyone, even by the courts, could have the audacity to live,
and by his unexpected return to give them such a blow; but it came about
in a very natural way.

George Acton had, on the night of the shipwreck, swung himself from the
fast sinking vessel to a plank. Wind and waves soon carried him many
miles. Then the storm had subsided and a gentle wind had arisen. He
found himself very much exhausted, for it had taken all his strength to
cling to the plank.

After a while he managed to seat himself upon the board. At dawn, all he
could see on every side was water and sky. Completely drenched, and
faint from hunger and cold, he passed the day.

As the sun was beginning to sink, he felt that there was nothing for him