Sitting reading by the house you might have seen Lestrange pause in his reading and glance round—a step—no, only a leaf blown by the wind. Sometimes at night Kearney would see him wandering by the lagoon side, a figure clearly defined in the starlight, walking with head bowed and hands behind its back, not a happy figure.
He talked little nowadays and his face had lost something of that other-world look, but what he said was always definite and to the point, his manner was more normal, and if the sailor had been questioned as to his condition, he would have given it as his opinion that the gentleman was “coming round.”
All the same, this coming-round business made it a dull time for Mr. Kearney, and only for Dick he might have grumbled. As I have said, his interest in the child made him see things lost to Lestrange.
Dick had a hole behind the house where he used to hide his toys, just as a dog hides bones. He was very secretive about this business, putting the things away when no one was looking. Kearney found the cache one day and must have left some marks behind him, for next day the hiding-place was changed. Another queer thing about Dick was the way, changing from one mood to another, he would alter.
Sometimes he would be racing along the lagoon bank or trying to climb trees, full of life and energy. Again, sometimes he would be seated, quiet and brooding, often with his hands folded, as if contemplating some abstract matter—day-dreaming.
A rum child.
CHAPTER II
THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN
One day, moved by a spirit of restlessness, Lestrange went off by himself through the woods, making towards the hill-top. It was the first time he had gone there alone, and when he reached the great boulder that crowned the rise he climbed it. Resting on its upper face, he looked far and wide across the sea, northward where the Ranatonga had vanished and westward where the sun would vanish that evening, the vast blue sea so beautiful from here, the sea that had taken his children—for ever.
Nothing broke the wheel of that sea-line; in the sou’west one could see a faint blur in the sky above it as though another island might be there, but the line itself was perfect, like the ring of a pentagram imprisoning Loneliness.