V
So it is done. On the day previous to his departure Mr. Wriford has a holiday from Mr. Master and walks over to Port Rannock, to the churchyard. He has identified while in the Infirmary the list of clothes and pathetic oddments—bundle of thirty-five coppers among them, paid in towards expenses of burial—found on the body of Mr. Puddlebox and has been told the grave lies just in the corner as you enter. It is just a grass-grown mound, nameless, that he finds. An old man who seems to be the sexton confirms his question. Yes, that was a stranger found drowned back in November. The last burial here. Long-lived place, Port Rannock.
Mr. Wriford stands a long while beside it—thinking. How go you now, Puddlebox? If you stood here—"O all ye graves, bless ye the Lord, praise Him—" That would be your way. How go you now? Puddlebox—that wasn't your real name, was it?—Puddlebox, why did you do it? Puddlebox, how did you do it? Puddlebox, I'm going off again. I don't know what's going to happen. I'm just going. I wish to God—I'd give anything, anything, to have you with me again. You can't. Well, how go you now? Can you think of me? Have you found what I can't find—what I've missed? Ah, it was always yours. You were always happy. How? Why? Down you went, down and drowned for me, for me! Down without even good-bye. Why? How? ...
The sexton, locking up his churchyard, turned Mr. Wriford out. "Well, good-bye," said Mr. Wriford to the nameless mound and carried his thoughts and his questions back along the road to the Workhouse. Ah, carried them further and very long. With him, now centring about Mr. Puddlebox and now about the perplexity of the something touched and something lost again in the oldest sea-captain living, during the long journey to London; with him again towards Ipswich.
VI
He crossed London by the Underground Railway. He did not want to see London. The second part of his journey, in the Ipswich train, was made in a crowded carriage, amid much staring and much chatter. A long wait was made at a station. Why Ipswich? And what then? Well, what did that matter? But why stay stifled up in here? He got up and left the compartment and passing out of the station among a crowd of passengers gave up his ticket without being questioned on it. Evening was falling. He neither asked nor cared where he was. Only those thoughts, those questions that had come with him in the train, concerned him, and pursuing them, he followed a road that took him through the considerable town in which he found himself and into the country beyond it. The month was May, the night, as presently it drew about him, warm and gentle. A hedgeside invited him, and he sat down and after a little while lay back. He did not trouble to make himself comfortable. There was nothing he wanted. There was only one thought into which all the other thoughts shaped: was there some secret of happiness he had missed?