the smoking-room and get a
little change. But he would stay away from the general gathering-places
on the ship and spare her what pain he could. That they should meet as
strangers was out of the question. That they should meet as social
acquaintances was even more so. They had been all to each other--and
they had been nothing. No other relation was possible.

So the week passed, and they reached Liverpool. He was purposely among
the last to go ashore. In the great shed where the luggage was
distributed under initial letters, he was glad to remember that W was so
far from L. Nevertheless, he allowed his eye to roam toward section L,
but found no one there whom he recognized. He ran over in his mind the
various chances that she might not have come. It was no uncommon thing
to read in a list of passengers the names of people who hadn't sailed.
He had done so before.

Later he scanned, as discreetly as he could, the occupants of the
special train that was to take them to London. He couldn't see that she
was anywhere among them. He sighed, but whether from relief or
disappointment he was not sure.

As it was one o'clock, he took his seat in the luncheon-car, making sure
in advance that she wasn't there. He had come to the conclusion by this
time that she was not on the train at all--that she hadn't been on the
steamer. He did not, however, regret his precautions, because--well,
because the sense of her proximity had made him feel as he had felt in
the days--fourteen years ago now--when the very streets of the city in
which she lived were hallowed ground. He had supposed that emotion dead.
Probably it was dead. It must be dead. It was merely that, owing to the
constraint of the voyage, his nerves were unstrung, inducing the frame
of mind in which people see ghosts. Yes, that was it; he had been seeing
ghosts. It was not a living thing, this renewed yearning for a sight of
her. It was only the reflex of something past. It could be explained
psychologically. It was the sort of evanescent sentiment inspired by old
songs, or by the scent of faded flowers, reviving old joys tenderly,
perhaps poignantly, but fleetingly, insubstantially, and only as the
wraiths of what they were. Yes, that was it, he repeated to himself as
he lunched. It was nothing to be afraid of, nothing incongruous with the
fact that he had left a wife and child in New York. It was not an
emotion; it was only the echo, the shadow, the memory of an emotion,
go