"Well, good luck to you. I've a living to make curing live people."
But I did not make a living by my profession. A girl who had said "yes" at the beginning of my studies now said "no," and it needed no deep investigation to discover the reason for the change. She had come under the sway of Dartmoor's personality, and my cause was hopeless.
What made it harder was that he seemed unaware of it. He evidently cared nothing for her, busying himself with his experiments and never seeking her. Otherwise I might have had it out with him.
However, the girl's "no" carried with it a denial of all else that I valued. I was young, unproven, much wrought up, and utterly irresponsible. For the next five years my life had better be glossed over. I went to sea, and found in the wandering life of a sailor the only relief for the aching drag at my breast.
At last, being more sane than insane, I turned over a new leaf and began to save money. A few years later I found myself owner and master of a fine little schooner, and, after a few exploring and trading trips around the South Sea Islands, came upon a pearl fishery which laid the foundations of a fortune.
This done, I took in a ballast load of guano, and, ten years from the time of my departure, sailed for the Golden Gate and home. I wanted to see that girl again, married or single.
It must have been intuition, for I arrived at San Francisco just before the date fixed for her marriage to Dartmoor. I saw him first, and it was he who told me. He was worn out with his unsolved problem, and about to abandon it.
There had been something lacking in his life, he said—something that lessened his powers, but now he had found it—the love of woman. He had awakened to the fact that he loved Miss Ewing, had always loved her, and was rejoiced to know that she had always loved him.
They were to be married in a week. His living dead man would then take second place in his thoughts, and perhaps new thoughts would come.
It was sad news for me, but I gritted my teeth and congratulated him.