"Yes. But I must return to my business at once. There are other matters too which—matters which I have neglected."
"But your health? You mentioned a cerebral disorder which required rest?"
"Oh, I am much better! The sea-voyage—I am another man, sir!"
He walked down the deck, his back toward her. It was the heavy figure, the swinging awkward gait, which she remembered twenty years ago on the old farm-road. The world was born anew to him: health, work, chances—he had but to stretch out his hands and clutch them all again, and under all was the sweet triumphant passion.
"Jane! Jane!"
His eyes strained back over the long waste of water. But as for Cornelia, he had forgotten that she was in the world.
When the people were leaving the steamer to go on the tug, she came up to him. It was easier to bear another turn of the rack than be utterly dropped out of remembrance.
"We part here, Mr. Neckart," with an admirably cordial little smile, holding out her gloved hand.
Neckart stammered with sudden remorse and pity: "'Pon my soul, Miss Fleming, I forgot that you were going ashore! Forgive me. But a man reprieved with the axe at his neck can't be expected to have his senses at call."
"You go back, then?"