graphy, is much simplified. The traveller can take a photograph, shut the plate in a light-tight box, and develop it twelve months afterwards if he pleases. There is no need to encumber oneself with chemicals; all the messy portion of the process can be done at home, in the seclusion of one's own dark room. I had not intended to take any photographs on the voyage, for dry plates are extraordinarily sensitive to the action of the faintest ray of light, and it was practically impossible to make my cabin dark enough to allow of my transferring plates from the dark box to the slides without absolutely spoiling them. But I happened to have left two plates in one of the slides, and before we reached our destination I devoted one of these to Clara and one to Mrs. Selby.
We parted tearfully, but not unhappily. We were to meet in three months' time, and our lives were then to be passed together. I believe we were too full of happiness in this prospect to grieve very much over our parting. As the Kaiser steamed away for Calcutta, I kept the happiness of our next meeting steadily before me, and it served to keep me in good spirits.
The time passed slowly; but it passed. I had received two letters from Clara, written from Calcutta, full of life, and hope, and joy at the prospect before us. She was going to spend a month at Allahabad, and a fortnight at Bombay, and she was then to return to Marseilles by a Messageries ship, the captain of which was an intimate friend of the uncle with whom she had been staying at Calcutta. By this arrangement she would arrive in England about a month before me.
