s the sea, my God.

* * * * *

On the morning of the 8th April, when I had been separated thirteen
weeks from her, I boarded several ships in the Inner Port, a lunacy in
my heart, and selected what looked like a very swift boat, one of the
smaller Atlantic air-steamers called the _Stettin_, which seemed to
require the least labour in oiling, &c., in order to fit her for the
sea: for the boat in which I had come to England was a mere tub, though
sound, and I pined for the wings of a dove, that I might fly away to
her, and be at rest.

I toiled with fluttering hands that day, and I believe that I was of the
colour of ashes to my very lips. By half-past two o'clock I was
finished, and by three was coasting down Southampton Water by Netley
Hospital and the Hamble-mouth, having said not one word about anything
at the telephone, or even to my own guilty heart not a word. But in the
silent depths of my being I felt this fact: that this must be a 35-knot
boat, and that, if driven hard, hard, in spite of the heavy garment of
seaweed which she trailed, she would do 30; also that Havre was 120
miles away, and at 7 P.M. I should be on its quay.

And when I was away, and out on the bright and breezy sea, I called to
her, crying out: '_I am coming!_' And I knew that she heard me, and that
her heart leapt to meet me, for mine leapt, too, and felt her answering.

The sun went down: it set. I was tired of the day's work, and of
standing at the high-set wheel; and I could not yet see the coast of
France. And a thought smote me, and after another ten minutes I turned
the ship's head back, my face screwed with pain, God knows, like a man
whose thumbs are ground between the screws, and his body drawn out and
out on the rack to tenuous length, and his flesh massacred with pincers:
and I fell upon the floor of the bridge contorted with anguish: for I
could not go to her. But after a time that paroxysm passed, and I rose
up sullen and resentful, and resumed my place at the wheel, steering
back for England: for a fixed resolve was in my breast, and I said: 'Oh
no, no more. If I could bear it, I would, I would ... but if it is
impossible, how can I? To-morrow night as the sun sets--without fail--so
help me God--I will kill myself.'

* * * * *

So it is finished, my good God.

On the early morning of the next day, the 9th, I having come back to
Portsmouth about eleven the prev