ason for the delay in the arrival of the ship,
which had been due not to failure of the wireless at our end, but to a
breakdown on Macquarie Island.

And then there was the account of the report of the loss of the _Scotia_
in the gale going out, which had been believed on insufficient evidence
(as I thought), but recorded in generous words of regret that sent the
blood boiling to a man's face and made him wish to heaven they could be
true.

We were only five or six days sailing to New Zealand, but the strain to
me was terrible, for the thought was always uppermost:

"Why didn't she write a word of welcome to reach me on my return to
civilisation?"

When I was not talking to somebody that question was constantly haunting
me. To escape from it I joined the sports of my shipmates, who with
joyful news in their hearts and fresh food in their stomachs were
feeling as good as new in spite of all they had suffered.

But the morning we smelt land, the morning the cloud banks above the
eastern horizon came out hard and fast and sure (no dreamland this
time), I stood at the ship's bow, saying nothing to anybody, only
straining my eyes for the yet distant world we were coming back to out
of that desolate white waste, and thinking:

"Surely I'll have news from her before nightfall."

There was a big warm-hearted crowd on the pier at Port Lyttelton.
Treacle said, "Gawd. I didn't know there was so many people in the
world, Guv'nor;" and O'Sullivan, catching sight of a pretty figure under
a sunshade, tugged at my arm and cried (in the voice of an astronomer
who has discovered a planet), "Commanther! Commanther! A _girl!_"

Almost before we had been brought to, a company of scientific visitors
came aboard; but I was more concerned about the telegrams that had come
at the same moment, so hurrying down to my cabin I tore them open like a
vulture riving its prey--always looking at the signatures first and
never touching an envelope without thinking:

"Oh God, what will be inside of it?"

There was nothing from my dear one! Invitations to dine, to lecture, to
write books, to do this and that and Heaven knows what, but never a word
from her who was more to me than all the world besides.

This made me more than ever sure of the "voices" that had called me back
from the 88th latitude, so I decided instantly to leave our ship in New
Zealand, in readiness for our next effort, and getting across to Sydney
to take the first fast stea