It was not at once that he could set his thoughts in order. But one fact was clear. He was free. He was free to enjoy the light of heaven, to breathe the breath of life.
In the height of the tumult now upon him he took a resolve. The barrier was down. He would put all to the touch. Somehow he had an implicit faith. A gulf was fixed, he knew, between Mary and himself. She belonged to a world far removed from the one in which he had been born, in which he had passed so much of his life. But he had that final pledge, "If ever you want help!" Well, there was only one way in which she could help him, and that she knew as well as he.
Soon after five he set out. If he went leisurely he would reach Queen Street about six, a propitious hour. She was generally at home at that time. It was hard to believe that he was the same man who had stood that morning on the curb at Charing Cross. He had absolutely nothing now in common with that broken mariner.
In those few brief hours he had suffered one sea change the more. The genie had relit the lamp. Again he was a forward-looking man. Nay, he was more. He was a prince of the blood approaching the portals of an imperial kingdom. Otto, a prince of that other kingdom, issued from the threshold of No. 50, while Venables, the butler, with polite surprise, was in the very act of receiving the Sailor.
"Hulloa, Harper," said the Prince. "Turned up again. We had all given you up for lost."
It might have been possible for a delicate ear to detect something other than welcome in the voice of his highness. But whether such was the case or not was a matter of no concern to the returned mariner.
Mary was at home and alone. At first he was a little unnerved by the sight of her, and she perhaps by the sight of him. The look of sadness in her face distressed him.
"Not one line," she said. But there was nothing of Edward Ambrose's half reproach in her voice.
"No."
"I was beginning to think I should never see or hear of you again." Her simplicity was the exact counterpart of his own.