so young....

Half an hour later I stole to the open door of her room. She was still
and white as the sheets of her bed. John Ford stood at the foot; and,
bowed to the level of the pillows, his head on his clenched fists, sat
Zachary. It was utterly quiet. The guttering of the leaves had ceased.
When things have come to a crisis, how little one feels--no fear, no
pity, no sorrow, rather the sense, as when a play is over, of anxiety to
get away!

Suddenly Zachary rose, brushed past me without seeing, and ran
downstairs.

Some hours later I went out on the path leading to the cove. It was
pitch-black; the riding light of the Pied Witch was still there, looking
no bigger than a firefly. Then from in front I heard sobbing--a man's
sobs; no sound is quite so dreadful. Zachary Pearse got up out of the
bank not ten paces off.

I had no heart to go after him, and sat down in the hedge. There was
something subtly akin to her in the fresh darkness of the young night;
the soft bank, the scent of honeysuckle, the touch of the ferns and
brambles. Death comes to all of us, and when it's over it's over; but
this blind business--of those left behind!

A little later the ship whistled twice; her starboard light gleamed
faintly--and that was all....

VIII

"TORQUAY, 30th October.

.... Do you remember the letters I wrote you from Moor Farm nearly three
years ago? To-day I rode over there. I stopped at Brixham on the way for
lunch, and walked down to the quay. There had been a shower--but the sun
was out again, shining on the sea, the brown-red sails, and the rampart
of slate roofs.

A trawler was lying there, which had evidently been in a collision. The
spiky-bearded, thin-lipped fellow in torn blue jersey and sea-boots who
was superintending the repairs, said to me a little proudly:

"Bane in collision, zurr; like to zee over her?" Then suddenly screwing
up his little blue eyes, he added:

"Why, I remembers yu. Steered yu along o' the young lady in this yer
very craft."

It was Prawle, Zachary Pearse's henchman.

"Yes," he went on, "that's the cutter."

"And Captain Pearse?"

He leant his back against the quay, and spat. "He was a pra-aper man; I
never zane none like 'en."

"Did you do any good out there?"

Prawle gave me a sharp glance.

"Gude? No, t'was arrm we done, vrom ztart to finish--had trouble all the
time. What a man cude du, the skipper did. When yu caan't du right, zome
calls it 'Providence'!