"In Rome you say?" said the doctor, with a note of jealousy. "You beat me there then. I saw him off from London, though. A few of us Dublin boys, being in town at the time, went down to Tilbury to see him sail, and when they were lifting anchor and the tug was hitching on, we stood on the pier—sixteen strong—and set up some of our college songs. 'Stop your noising, boys,' said he, 'the Lieutenant will be hearing you.' But not a bit of it. We sang away as long as we could see him going out with the tide, and then we went back in the train, smoking our pipes like so many Vauxhall chimneys, and narra a word out of the one of us. . . . Yes, yes, there are some men like that. They come like the stars of night and go like the light of heaven. Same as there are some women who walk the world like the sun, and leave the grass growing green wherever their feet have trod."
It was very ridiculous, I did not then understand why it should be so, but the tears came gushing into my eyes while the doctor spoke, and it was as much as I could do to preserve my composure.
What interpretation my husband put upon my emotion I do not know, but I saw that his face darkened, and when the doctor turned to him to ask if he also knew Martin he answered curtly and brusquely,
"Not I. No loss either, I should say."
"No loss?" said the doctor. "Show me the man under the stars of God that's fit to hold a candle to Martin Conrad, and by the angel Gabriel I'll go fifty miles out of my way to put a sight on him."
More than ever after this talk about Martin Conrad I was feeling defenceless, and at the mercy of my husband's wishes and whims, when something happened which seemed to change his character altogether.
The third day out, on a bright and quiet morning, we called at Malta, and while my husband went ashore to visit some friends in the garrison, I sat on deck watching the life of the little port and looking at the big warships anchored in the bay.
A Maltese woman came on board to sell souvenirs of the island, and picking out of her tray a tiny twisted thing in coral, I asked what it was.
"That's a charm, my lady," said the woman.
"A charm for what?"