and
she had married him, and she had died. That was all there was to it. And
though she had sorrowed his younger days, yet he felt very kindly to
her. There she was, with her sullen mouth, her drooping shoulders,
complaining. "Life is so short, and there was so little to it, and
others have so much," she seemed to say. "I had a right to have my man
and a place in the country, the like of other girls, but all I got was
you. And death at the end of a short year. Wasn't it hard, och, wasn't
it so!" And he had to comfort her. "It was nobody's fault, Moyra. It
just happened. We were awfully young." But her lips were still sullen,
her eyes suspicious as she went away. "A short life and a bitter one. A
hard thing surely!" When she left him there was a sigh of relief. Poor
girl!

And the third ghost was hardly a presence, but an absence, or a presence
so intangible that it was worse than an absence. Claire-Anne, who was
dead, whom he had--made dead, whom he had taken it upon himself to set
free. For a year after he had left Marseilles she had seemed to be
always with him, closer in spirit, now she was dead, than she had ever
been in flesh and spirit when alive. A part of him she seemed always to
be. Always there, in the quiet cabin, on the heeling decks, on the solid
shore. And the long thoughts of him seemed to be conversation with her,
on strange beautiful things, on strange terrible things, on the common
commodity of life.... And then one day she left him....

He was coming into Southampton Water and waiting for the pilot's cutter
from the Solent, one bright July morning. And all the Solent was dotted
with sails, the snowy sails of great yachts and the cinnamon sails of
small ones. Little fishing-craft prowled near the shore. And afar off,
in fancy, he could see the troops of swans, and the stalking herons. The
pilot's cutter plowed toward him, her deep forefoot dividing the water
like a knife. Immense, vibrant beauty. And he felt, as always, that
Claire-Anne was by him, her dark understanding presence, her clear Greek
face, her little smile.

"In a minute now we will come into the wind and lower a boat,
Claire-Anne." And a shock of surprise came over him. She was not there.
It was as though he had been talking with his back turned to some one,
and turning around found they weren't there. For an instant he felt as
if he had lost somebody overboard. And then it came to him that water,
earth, material hazards were nothing t