scarcely touch the ground between the prison-gates
and the deck of that ship."

The transformed Fyne spoke in a forcibly lowered tone which I heard
without difficulty. The rumbling, composite noises of the street were
hushed for a moment, during one of these sudden breaks in the traffic as
if the stream of commerce had dried up at its source. Having an
unobstructed view past Fyne's shoulder, I was astonished to see that the
girl was still there. I thought she had gone up long before. But there
was her black slender figure, her white face under the roses of her hat.
She stood on the edge of the pavement as people stand on the bank of a
stream, very still, as if waiting--or as if unconscious of where she
was. The three dismal, sodden loafers (I could see them too; they
hadn't budged an inch) seemed to me to be watching her. Which was
horrible.

Meantime Fyne was telling me rather remarkable things--for him. He
declared first it was a mercy in a sense. Then he asked me if it were
not real madness, to saddle one's existence with such a perpetual
reminder. The daily existence. The isolated sea-bound existence. To
bring such an additional strain into the solitude already trying enough
for two people was the craziest thing. Undesirable relations were bad
enough on shore. One could cut them or at least forget their existence
now and then. He himself was preparing to forget his brother-in-law's
existence as much as possible.

That was the general sense of his remarks, not his exact words. I
thought that his wife's brother's existence had never been very
embarrassing to him but that now of course he would have to abstain from
his allusions to the "son of the poet--you know." I said "yes, yes," in
the pauses because I did not want him to turn round; and all the time I
was watching the girl intently. I thought I knew now what she meant
with her "He was most generous." Yes. Generosity of character may
carry a man through any situation. But why didn't she go then to her
generous man? Why stand there as if clinging to this solid earth which
she surely hated as one must hate the place where one has been
tormented, hopeless, unhappy? Suddenly she stirred. Was she going to
cross over? No. She turned and began to walk slowly close to the
curbstone, reminding me of the time when I discovered her walking near
the edge of a ninety-foot sheer drop. It was the same impression, the
same carriage, straight, slim, wit