The next year he spoke French and German after a fashion of his own, and could attend to foreign customers. In the autumn he was promoted to the warehouse and allowed to sell. One day he went out and came back with a contract running into four figures; and then, instead of an increase of salary, he stipulated for a small commission. His employer made no opposition; indeed, Mr. Campbell rather preferred this new arrangement. Baker was beginning to put by money. And from across the ocean came an answering whoop, shouts and ecstasies of triumph, as, step by step, these two drew nearer to the Promised Land. Her letters had now become a spur, a call—never a goad, never a lash; but there they were, egging him on, a challenge and yet a support, a martial music playing him into battle. In the night he blessed her; often he lay awake, groping for the memory of that sweet slim body.... So passed the years till he had made a home for her.

The long-awaited day had dawned at last. His commissions had reached the sum they had agreed; with his savings he had taken a modest house and furnished it. She had only to walk inside. He told his chief, now become his friend; he took him into his confidence and unfolded their whole story.

“So that’s what put the devil inside you!” cried Campbell, and slapped him on the back. “Go you off to Liverpool,” he added, “and don’t come back till you’re wanted. Make it a week, Baker; for you’re not indispensable, though you think you are. And tell the dear girl I sent you, and that I want to shake hands with her—she’s given me the best salesman in all Bermondsey, d’ye hear that?”

Jimmy heard it and laughed; and there was a pride in his laughter as well as a deep joy. Few men had a wife like his, he knew—scarce one in all he had run across these six hot years. Arrived home that night, he found the last letter she had posted from the other side.

“Husband and lover,” she wrote, “hold on to something tight. I have a dear surprise for you. I am bringing your boy to his father. I never told you before, because I wanted you to be free, because I wanted you to go ahead and not bother about me and about us. He was born in the spring, when I only sent post-cards. That was why I only sent post-cards, and that was why I removed to Cleveland afterwards. I had my marriage paper to show, so it didn’t matter much, and I let out and worked for the two of us; and now he’s close on six years old. He’s just like you, Jim: the same sturdy limbs, the same clear forehead, and good blue eyes. With him I have been able to bear all this separation. He knows you and loves you, and to-day he is mad with joy, because, at last, we are going to live with father. Forgive me for hiding this from you; but I didn’t want to be a drag upon you. I wanted you to have a clear road and go the shortest way. When you meet us at Liverpool, you’ll tell me whether I did right.”

“My God,” cried Jimmy Baker, “my God, I’ve got a son as well! And it was like her, too—like her to say nothing and stand aside for me!”

V

In Liverpool Baker met them, and the boy was just as she had described him, with his father’s eyes and forehead, and strength of chest and limb. That subtle something which makes blood know its own blood, flesh its own flesh, united these two on the landing-stage. Mamie stood aside holding in her tears, as father and son hugged one another for the first time. He had kissed her before the child, and she was glad of that. His quick embrace, his look of pride, had been a reassurance, a reward, that wiped out in one stroke the pain of those long years, their doubts, their fears, suspenses, and privations. From a slip of a girl she had grown into splendid womanhood; and he, the lad that she remembered, was standing there—a man.

They left the boy with grandparents and aunts, a whole cloud of new relations; and then alone they stole off to Seacombe and Dunster, and the shadow of Dunkery Beacon.

It was May. Earth, sea, and sky were tender with their own tenderness; in the youth of all things green, new fledged, or bursting into flower, they found echo and symbol of their own renewal. Lovers they had been here, when he had served in “that old bank”; and lovers they were once more, now that steadfastness and self-mastery had brought them a far deeper passion.