"I don't know exactly. To sea, I hope. I'm well again, or next door to it. I mean to command another ship, if such a thing's possible."
"But you are leaving the Fair Harbor. Why?"
He turned on her almost fiercely. "Why?" he cried. "Don't you know why? Because I'm a man—or I was one—and I want to be a man again. On shore, I'm—well, I'm a good deal of a failure, I guess; but on salt water I count for somethin'. I'm goin' to sea where I belong."
He strode to the window and stood there, looking out. He heard her rise, heard her step beside him. Then he felt her hand upon his.
"I'm glad for you," she said, simply. "Very, very glad. I wish I were a man and could go, too."
He did not look at her, he did not dare.
"It's a rough life," he said, "but I like it."
"I know.... So you will soon be really seeing again those things you told me about, the foreign cities and the people and those islands—and all the wonderful, wonderful places. And you won't have to fret about the grocery bills, or the mean little Fair Harbor gossip, or anything of the kind. You can just sail away and forget it all."
"I shan't forget it all. There's a lot I never want to forget."
There was an interval of silence here, an interval that, to the captain, seemed to last for ages. It must be broken, it must be or....