I stood and looked at the man without seeing him, and then in a hollow voice asked: "Where does he live?"
"A hundred and nine Lisbury Street, Calistoy Road, East. Now that I've told you, I wish I hadn't. You look as though you were going to measure him for a coffin."
"Thank you," said I, and walked away.
I told the cabman to drive me to the address I had received, and in due time we arrived in front of a very good-looking house, in a quiet and respectable street.
I was in a peculiar state of mind. I had half expected the terrible shock, and I had received it. But I had not been stunned; I had been roused to an unusual condition of mental activity. My senses were sharpened by the torment of my soul, and I observed everything,—the quarter of the city, the street, the house.
The woman who opened the door started a little when she saw me. I asked for Mrs. Captain Chesters, and walked in without waiting to be told whether the lady was in or not. The woman showed me into a little parlor, and left me. Her manner plainly indicated that she suspected something was the matter with me.
In a very short time a tall, well-made man, with curly brown hair, a handsome, sun-browned face, and that fine presence which command at sea frequently gives, entered the room.
"I understand, sir," said he, "that you asked for my wife, but I thought it better to come to you myself. What is your business with her, sir, and what is your name?"
"My name is Charles Rockwell," I said, "and my business is to see her. If she has already forgotten my name, you can tell her that I kept company with her for a while on the Atlantic Ocean, when she was in one wreck and I was in another."
"Good heavens!" cried the young sailor; "do you mean to say that you are the man who was on the derelict Sparhawk? And were you picked up by Captain Stearns, whom I sent after you? I supposed he would have written to me about you."