The thought brought relief, it gave me something to do. It was an
escape valve for my feelings, and without waiting a second I started on
the road to Falmouth.

A few days later I was sailing down the Bay of Biscay, bound for
Barcelona, where I hoped I might find Salambo, who had been captain of
the pirate ship.

[1] "Croust" is a corruption of the word "carouse." This designates a
meal which harvesters and haymakers have between ordinary meals on
account of specially hard work.--EDITOR.

CHAPTER XXV

THE VOICE OF A FRIEND

The journey to Barcelona was uneventful, at any rate for me. During
the whole time I lived in a kind of hideous dream. I was ever thinking
of what I had seen and done during the little time I had been in
England, but nothing was real save a horrible weight that oppressed me.
I know that the captain sought to be friendly, while some of the
passengers seemed to be interested in the sad, silent man who ever
sought to be alone, but I paid little heed to their overtures. How
could I when two ghastly passions, hatred and remorse, possessed me?

Sometimes I caught myself thinking of what Ruth had told me during
those two or three sweet hours we were together. I remember asking her
why she had seemed to love Wilfred the better, and why, when she saw
how I loved her, she did not in some way let me know that she cared for
me. And blushingly she told me that, besides the reports about my
boasting that she would have to marry me, which she only half believed,
she was afraid I would think her forward and immodest. This set me
thinking how it had all ended. How through misunderstandings our lives
had been ruined, until life seemed a tragedy, and Providence only a
dream. But no relief came to me, the burdens which I had myself made
still crushed me to the earth, and I could see no brightness in the
future.

We reached Barcelona at length, and I set out to find Salambo. I knew
that if all had gone well with him I should have little difficulty in
this. He had given me instructions which were unmistakable as to his
whereabouts, so I started at once for the house at which he told me to
inquire.

I found that this house was occupied by his own parents, and no welcome
could be warmer than mine when I told them my name.

I asked them if their son was well, and I quickly found that he was
well and happy, that he had found Inez, that they had been wedded, and
were living not far away fr