"Oh, on steamers mostly," conceded the woman. Very faintly the pallid nostrils dilated. "I've been to Australia five times," she acknowledged. "And China twice. And Japan,—" she quickened. "All the little vague outlying islands, all the great jostling eager seaports! By steam, by paddle wheels, by lax, loose-flapping rainbow-colored sails!" In sudden listlessness she turned her cheek to the pillow again. "Wherever the sea is salt," she murmured. "Wherever the sea is salt! Hunting, always and forever hunting,—yes, that's it,—always and forever hunting for lights and laughter and——"
"Pardon me," said the Young Doctor, quite abruptly. "But is your husband living?" 13
"No," said the woman. "He died two years ago."
Inquisitively for a moment the Young Doctor studied the nerve-ravaged face before him.
"Pardon me," he stammered. "But—but was it a great shock to you?"
"It was a great relief," said the woman, without emotion. "He had been hopelessly insane for seventeen years."
"Oh!" jumped the Young Doctor, as though the thought fairly tortured his senses.
"Oh!" speculated the woman quizzically, with the merciful outer callousness which the brain provides for those who are obliged to carry some one scorching thought for an indeterminate period of years.
As though in sheer nervous outlet the Young Doctor began almost at once to pace the room.
"Seeing that there are no—no personal ties, apparently, to hold you here—or drive you there," he said, "the matter of congenial climate ought to be one that we can easily arrange." 14