And she said no more. But sat with dreaming eyes looking into the fire. After a long pause she spoke again.
“So you must not grieve for me,” she said, returning persistently to her point.
She was quite simple and honest. Hers was that rare wisdom which is given only to the pure in heart; for they see through into the soul of man and sift out the honest from among the false.
It seemed that she had gained her object, for Stoke was visibly relieved. He told her many things which he had withheld from other inquirers. He cleared Dixon's good name from anything but that liability to error which is only human, and spoke of the captain's nerve and steadiness in the hour of danger. Insensibly they lapsed into a low-voiced discussion of Dixon as of the character of a lost friend equally dear to them both.
Then he rose to take his leave before it was really necessary to go in order to catch his train, impatient to meet her eyes—which were waiting for his—for a moment as they said good-bye, as the man who is the slave of a habit waits impatiently for the time when he can give way to it.
He went home to the rooms he always occupied near his club in London. There he found a number of letters which had been sent on from the steamship company's offices. The first he opened bore the postmark of St. Just in Cornwall. It was from the coastguard captain of that remote western station, and it had been originally posted to St. Keverne.
“Dear Sir,” he wrote. “One of your crew or passengers has turned up here on foot. He must have been wandering about for nearly a week and is destitute. At times his mind is unhinged. He began to write a letter, but could not finish it, and gives no name. Please come over and identify him. Meanwhile, I will take good care of him.”
Stoke opened the folded paper, which had dropped from the envelope.
“Dear Jack,” it began. One or two sentences followed, but there was no sequence or sense in them. The writing was that of Captain Dixon without its characteristic firmness or cohesion.
Stoke glanced at his watch and took up his bag—a new bag hurriedly bought in Falmouth—stuffed full of a few necessities pressed upon him by kind persons at St. Keverne when he stood among them in the clothes in which he had swum ashore, which had dried upon him during a long November night. There was just time to catch the night mail to Penzance. Heaven was kind to him and gave him no time to think.