This point was never settled. I was detained in town from week to week

till it seemed hardly worth while to go back. But as I had kept on my

rooms in the farmhouse I concluded to go down again for a few days.

It was late, deep dusk, when I got out at our little country station. My

eyes fell on the unmistakable broad back and the muscular legs in cycling

stockings of little Fyne. He passed along the carriages rapidly towards

the rear of the train, which presently pulled out and left him solitary

at the end of the rustic platform. When he came back to where I waited I

perceived that he was much perturbed, so perturbed as to forget the

convention of the usual greetings. He only exclaimed Oh! on recognizing

me, and stopped irresolute. When I asked him if he had been expecting

somebody by that train he didn't seem to know. He stammered

disconnectedly. I looked hard at him. To all appearances he was

perfectly sober; moreover to suspect Fyne of a lapse from the proprieties

high or low, great or small, was absurd. He was also a too serious and

deliberate person to go mad suddenly. But as he seemed to have forgotten

that he had a tongue in his head I concluded I would leave him to his

mystery. To my surprise he followed me out of the station and kept by my

side, though I did not encourage him. I did not however repulse his

attempts at conversation. He was no longer expecting me, he said. He

had given me up. The weather had been uniformly fine--and so on. I

gathered also that the son of the poet had curtailed his stay somewhat

and gone back to his ship the day before.

That information touched me but little. Believing in heredity in

moderation I knew well how sea-life fashions a man outwardly and stamps

his soul with the mark of a certain prosaic fitness--because a sailor is

not an adventurer. I expressed no regret at missing Captain Anthony and

we proceeded in silence till, on approaching the holiday cottage, Fyne

suddenly and unexpectedly broke it by the hurried declaration that he

would go on with me a little farther.

"Go with you to your door," he mumbled and started forward to the little

gate where the shadowy figure of Mrs. Fyne hovered, clearly on the

lookout for him. She was alone. The children must have been already in

bed and I saw no attending girl-friend shadow near her vague but

unmistakable form, half-lost in the obscurity of the little garden.




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