"I don't follow you."
"Yes, of course—one assumes too much. One forgets that you have been away so long and that apparently you have not yet seen Mortimer."
"Mortimer!"
"Perhaps I ought to have told you ... yes ... I can see I ought to have. Mortimer has news."
"News!"
"Now I am going to put you out. Go at once and see him."
Henry Harper presently realized that he was again on the pavement of Pall Mall, but he was too bewildered to know how he had come there. He was in a kind of dream. But all he did had a specific purpose. For instance, he was going to see Mr. Mortimer. Yet he could not understand what lay behind his friend's desire that he should see the solicitor at once. The true explanation never occurred to him.
Mr. Mortimer had to tell him that his wife had died two months ago in the course of one of her bouts of drinking. At first the Sailor could not grasp the significance of the statement. It hardly seemed to make any impact upon him. He thanked Mr. Mortimer for all his services in a trying matter, and went out into the street, apparently giving very little thought to what had happened.
Here, however, he grew suddenly aware that the aspect of things had completely changed. Something had occurred which lay beyond his ken, but he knew already that the whole universe was different.
A new man in brain and heart, he collected his things from Charing Cross and drove to Brinkworth Street. His room was ready to receive him in spite of the fact that he had been away eleven months. He had written to Mr. Paley from time to time inclosing money and telling him that he hoped to be home presently. And home he was at last.