She smiled faintly in the moonlight, and for once there was no mockery in her smile.
"We have wandered from our original metaphor of a battlefield," she said gently, "but I like your simile of a ship better. Yes, I suppose that is what I was trying to convey—in a confused fashion, I'm afraid. We each have our voyage to complete, our ship to bring into harbour; and even though sometimes it seems about to founder"—he knew she alluded to the catastrophe of her own life—"we must not let it sink if we can keep it afloat."
For a moment there was silence between them; and again they heard the melancholy hoot of the owl, flying homewards now.
Then Anstice said slowly:
"You are right, of course. But"—at last his pent-up bitterness burst its bounds and overflowed in quick, vehement speech—"it's easy enough for a man to handle his ship carefully when he has some precious thing on board—or even when he knows some welcoming voice will greet him as he enters—at last—into his haven. But the man whose ship is empty, who has no right to expect even one greeting word—is there no excuse for him if he navigate the seas carelessly?"
"No." In the moonlight she faced him, and her eyes looked oddly luminous. "For a derelict's the greatest danger a boat can encounter on the high seas ... all our boats cross and recross the paths of others, you know, and no man has the right to place another's ship in peril by his own—carelessness."
"By God, you're right," he said vehemently; and she did not resent his hasty speech. "Mrs. Carstairs, you've done more for me to-night than you know—and if I can repay you I will, though it cost me all I have in the world."
"You can repay me very easily," she said, holding out her hand, all the motherhood in her coming to the surface. "Save Cherry—she is all I have—now—in the world; and her little barque, at least, was meant to dance over summer seas."
"God helping me, I will save her," he said, taking her hand in a quick, earnest clasp; and then he entered his waiting car and drove away without another word, a new courage in his heart.