"Matey," said the oldest sea-captain living, "Matey, I've got me portograph in the Daily Mirror paper."
He lay gazing before him, just thinking, thinking.
CHAPTER II
QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS
I
These occupied Mr. Wriford's thoughts. First of that sacrifice made for him when, without hint of it, without so much as good-bye, Mr. Puddlebox had swung off his hands from the ledge and gone down into the sea. Why made for him? How?
Doctor had asked it over at the Cottage Hospital:
"Jumped off? Why?"
Ah, why? Search it through the long days, ask it of the night. Follow, ah, follow it in dreaming; awake to question it anew! Sacrifice made for him! What must have been suffered in the determination to make it? What in its dreadful act? And why, why? Well, if no answer to that, set it aside—set Why aside and seek to find How? How done? Its courage wherein found, where?
Why? How? How? Why? Ah, questions unanswerable; ah, solutions never to be found! Doctor's questions over at the Cottage Hospital; wholly and sanely Mr. Wriford's questions, there as he lay gazing before him in the little room at Port Rannock, here as he lay in the convalescent ward at Pendra Infirmary. Why? How? How? Why? Wholly and sanely his by day and day succeeding day, by night and night succeeding night. Wholly and sanely his—coldly his.