rost to thaw from your soul."

"And are reckless carryings-on and desperate chancing things to smile
at?"

"O Simon, Simon, what a righteous man you're to be that never expects to
see the day when no harbor this side of God's eternal sea will offer you
the only safe and quiet mooring!"

Again I saw Mary Snow sitting at the window and looking down the street,
and remembering how she had spoken of his lonely home, I said: "No doubt
a man, like a vessel, Captain Glynn, should have always a mooring
somewhere. A wonder you never thought of marrying again?"

"I have thought of it."

"And with some one woman in mind?"

"It may be." He answered that, too, without a pause.

"And does she know?"

"It may be she knows. No knowing when they know, Simon. As men best
understand the soul, so it is woman's best gift to understand the heart.
But no fair play in me to ask her. I've had my great hour, and may not
have it again with another. To offer the woman I have in mind anything
less than a great love--it would be to cheat, Simon. No, no, no--it's
not the kind of a man I am now, but the kind you are, Simon, should
marry."

"It's not my kind that women like best, captain," I said.

"There are women to like every kind, Simon, and almost any kind of a
woman would like your kind, Simon, if you would only learn to be less
ashamed of what should be no shame. And it is you, already in love,
who----"

"Me--in love?" I was like a vessel luffing to escape a squall, he had
come on me so quickly.

"There it is, Simon--the upbringing of you that would never own up to
what you think only yourself know. Three weeks to sea now you've been
with me, and never a gull you've seen skirling to the west'ard that your
eyes haven't followed. By no mistake do you watch them flying easterly.
And when last evening I said, 'To-morrow, boys, we'll swing her off and
drive her to the west'ard--to the west'ard and Gloucester!' the leaping
heart in you drove the blood to your very eyes. Surely that was not in
sorrow, Simon?"

I made no answer.

Back and forth we paced, and talked as we paced, until the stars were
dimming in the sky and the darkness fading from the sea. He stopped by
the rail and stared, aweary-like, I thought, upon the waters.

"Simon, surely few men but would rather be themselves than anybody else
that lives; but surely, too, no man sailing his own wide courses but
comes to the day when he wishes he'd been less free in his navigat