“All that—and I haven’t said a word about myself, the real end of my soliloquy. I’m permanently discouraged; I have qualms about boring you. No, I shall never find another listener as satisfactory as the iron dog.”
A light glimmered far at sea. “I sit here a great deal,” she informed him, “and watch the ships, a thumbprint of blue smoke at day and a spark at night, going up and down their water roads. You are enviable—getting up your anchor, sailing where you like, safe and free.” Her voice took on a passionate intensity that surprised him; it was sick with weariness and longing, with sudden revolt from the pervasive apprehension.
“Safe and free,” he repeated thinly, as if satirizing the condition implied by those commonplace, assuaging words. He had, in his flight from society, sought simply peace. John Woolfolk now questioned all his implied success. He had found the elemental hush of the sea, the iron aloofness of rocky and uninhabited coasts, but he had never been able to still the dull rebellion within, the legacy of the past. A feeling of complete failure settled over him. His safety and freedom amounted to this—that life had broken him and cast him aside.
A long, hollow wail rose from the land, and Millie Stope moved sharply.
“There’s Nicholas,” she exclaimed, “blowing on the conch! They don’t know where I am; I’d better go in.”
A small, evident panic took possession of her; the shiver in her voice swelled.
“No, don’t come,” she added. “I’ll be quicker without you.” She made her way over the wharf to the shore, but there paused, “I suppose you’ll be going soon?”
“Tomorrow probably,” he answered.
On the ketch Halvard had gone below for the night. The yacht swayed slightly to an unseen swell; the riding light moved backward and forward, its ray flickering over the glassy water. John Woolfolk brought his bedding from the cabin and, disposing it on deck, lay with his wakeful dark face set against the far, multitudinous worlds.