n:

"As to life, that's another thing. And I don't know that one ought to
blame you very much--though it seemed rather an excessive step. I wonder
now if it isn't the ugliness rather than the pain of the struggle which
. . . "

She shuddered visibly: "But I do blame myself," she exclaimed with
feeling. "I am ashamed." And, dropping her head, she looked in a moment
the very picture of remorse and shame.

"Well, you will be going away from all its horrors," I said. "And surely
you are not afraid of the sea. You are a sailor's granddaughter, I
understand."

She sighed deeply. She remembered her grandfather only a little. He was
a clean-shaven man with a ruddy complexion and long, perfectly white
hair. He used to take her on his knee, and putting his face near hers,
talk to her in loving whispers. If only he were alive now . . . !

She remained silent for a while.

"Aren't you anxious to see the ship?" I asked.

She lowered her head still more so that I could not see anything of her
face.

"I don't know," she murmured.

I had already the suspicion that she did not know her own feelings. All
this work of the merest chance had been so unexpected, so sudden. And
she had nothing to fall back upon, no experience but such as to shake her
belief in every human being. She was dreadfully and pitifully forlorn.
It was almost in order to comfort my own depression that I remarked
cheerfully:

"Well, I know of somebody who must be growing extremely anxious to see
you."

"I am before my time," she confessed simply, rousing herself. "I had
nothing to do. So I came out."

I had the sudden vision of a shabby, lonely little room at the other end
of the town. It had grown intolerable to her restlessness. The mere
thought of it oppressed her. Flora de Barral was looking frankly at her
chance confidant,

"And I came this way," she went on. "I appointed the time myself
yesterday, but Captain Anthony would not have minded. He told me he was
going to look over some business papers till I came."

The idea of the son of the poet, the rescuer of the most forlorn damsel
of modern times, the man of violence, gentleness and generosity, sitting
up to his neck in ship's accounts amused me. "I am sure he would not
have minded," I said, smiling. But the girl's stare was sombre, her thin
white face seemed pathetically careworn.

"I can hardly believe yet," she murmured anxiously.

"It's quite real. Never fear," I