But Walter refused to answer, or even to speak; the captain's manner had startled him, or it may be there was something in the keen eye fixed so earnestly upon him, which held him speechless.
For a moment the two gazed fixedly at each other,—the old man and the young,—the latter with a bright, vacant stare, while the other sought for some token to tell him that it was not without a reason his heart beat so fast with a hope of he scarcely knew what.
"I will inquire below," he said at last, as he failed to elicit any information from Walter, and going to the office, he turned the leaves of the register back to the day when he had left three weeks before.
Then with untiring patience he read on and on, read Jones and Smith, and Smith and Brown, some with wives and some without, some with daughters, some with sisters, and some alone, but none as yet were sent to No. 40. So he read on again and then at last he found the name he sought,—Walter Marshall.
"Thank God! thank God!" he uttered faintly, and those who heard only the last word thought to themselves:
"I never knew the captain swore before."
With great effort he compelled himself to be calm, and when at last he spoke none detected in his voice a trace of the shock that name had given him, bringing back at once the gable-roofed farm-house far away, the maple tree where his name was cut, the brown-haired wife, the stormy night when the wind rushed sobbing past the window where he stood and looked his last on her, the mother long since dead, and the father who believed him guilty.
All this passed in rapid review before his mind, and then his thoughts came back to the present time, and centered themselves upon the restless, tossing form which, up in No. 40, had said to him:
"Do you know my father?"
"What is it, captain?" the landlord asked. "Your face is white as paper."