house. No money to get back; a hungry
chum in London who would begin to think he had been given the go-by.
"Damn!" he muttered. He could break the door in, certainly; but
they would perhaps bundle him into chokey for that without asking
questions--no great matter, only he was confoundedly afraid of being
locked up, even in mistake. He turned cold at the thought. He stamped
his feet on the sodden grass.

"What are you?--a sailor?" said an agitated voice.

She had flitted out, a shadow herself, attracted by the reckless shadow
waiting under the wall of her home.

"Anything. Enough of a sailor to be worth my salt before the mast. Came
home that way this time."

"Where do you come from?" she asked.

"Right away from a jolly good spree," he said, "by the London
train--see? Ough! I hate being shut up in a train. I don't mind a house
so much."

"Ah," she said; "that's lucky."

"Because in a house you can at any time open the blamed door and walk
away straight before you."

"And never come back?"

"Not for sixteen years at least," he laughed. "To a rabbit hutch, and
get a confounded old shovel..."

"A ship is not so very big," she taunted.

"No, but the sea is great."

She dropped her head, and as if her ears had been opened to the voices
of the world, she heard, beyond the rampart of sea-wall, the swell
of yesterday's gale breaking on the beach with monotonous and solemn
vibrations, as if all the earth had been a tolling bell.

"And then, why, a ship's a ship. You love her and leave her; and a
voyage isn't a marriage." He quoted the sailor's saying lightly.

"It is not a marriage," she whispered.

"I never took a false name, and I've never yet told a lie to a woman.
What lie? Why, _the_ lie--. Take me or leave me, I say: and if you take
me, then it is..." He hummed a snatch very low, leaning against the
wall.

"Oh, ho, ho Rio!
And fare thee well,
My bonnie young girl,
We're bound to Rio Grande."

"Capstan song," he explained. Her teeth chattered.

"You are cold," he said. "Here's that affair of yours I picked up." She
felt his hands about her, wrapping her closely. "Hold the ends together
in front," he commanded.

"What did you come here for?" she asked, repressing a shudder.

"Five quid," he answered, promptly. "We let our spree go on a little too
long and got hard up."

"You've been drinking?" she said.

"Blind three days; on purpose. I am not given that way--don't you think