When Mr. and Mrs. Travers departed, Sir Walter bade them farewell. The lady wept, and her tears fell on his hand as he held it. She was hysterical.
"For Heaven's sake don't let Mary be haunted by that dreadful priest," she said. "There is something terrible about him. He has no bowels of compassion. I tried to console him for the loss of his son, and he turned upon me as if I were weak-minded."
"I had to tell him he was being rude and forgetting that he spoke to a lady," said Ernest Travers. "One makes every allowance for a father's sufferings; but they should not take the form of abrupt and harsh speech to a sympathetic fellow-creature—nay, to anyone, let alone a woman. His sacred calling ought to—"
"A man's profession cannot alter his manners, my dear Ernest; they come from defects of temperament, no doubt. May must not be judged. His faith would move mountains."
"So would mine," said Ernest Travers, "and so would yours, Walter. But it is perfectly possible to be a Christian and a gentleman. To imply that our faith was weak because we expressed ordinary human emotions and pitied him unfeignedly for the loss of his only child—"
"Good-bye, good-bye, my dear friends," answered the other. "I cannot say how I esteem your kindly offices in this affliction. May we meet again presently. God bless and keep you both."
The post-mortem examination revealed no physical reason why Thomas May should have ceased to breathe. Neither did the subsequent investigations of a Government analytical chemist throw any light upon the sailor's sudden death. No cause existed, and therefore none could be reported at the inquest held a day later.
The coroner's jury brought in a verdict rarely heard, but none dissented from it. They held that May had received his death "by the hand of God."
"All men receive death from the hand of God," said Septimus May, when the judicial inquiry was ended. "They receive life from the hand of God also. But, while bowing to that, there is a great deal more we are called to do when God's hand falls as it has fallen upon my son. To-night I shall pray beside his dust, and presently, when he is at peace, I shall be guided. There is a grave duty beside me, Sir Walter, and none must come between me and that duty."
"There is a duty before all of us, and be sure nobody will shrink from it. I have done what is right, so far. We have secured a famous detective—the most famous in England, they tell me. He is called Peter Hardcastle, and he will, I hope, be able to arrive here immediately."