across the road, buys a rug for her, thinks of everything; and in the train tucks her in and keeps on talking, thirteen to the dozen, all the way, to keep her spirits up, as it were; but really because he can’t hold his peace for very joy.  Here’s the thing done all at once, and nothing to pay.  Done.  Actually done.  His head swims now and again when he thinks of it.  What enormous luck!  It almost frightens him.  He would like to yell and sing.  Meantime George Dunbar sits in his corner, looking so deadly miserable that at last poor Mrs. Harry tries to comfort him, and so cheers herself up at the same time by talking about how her Harry is a prudent man; not likely to risk his crew’s life or his own unnecessarily—­and so on.

“First thing they hear at Westport station is that the life-boat has been out to the ship again, and has brought off the second officer, who had hurt himself, and a few sailors.  Captain and the rest of the crew, about fifteen in all, are still on board.  Tugs expected to arrive every moment.

“They take Mrs. Harry to the inn, nearly opposite the rocks; she bolts straight up-stairs to look out of the window, and she lets out a great cry when she sees the wreck.  She won’t rest till she gets on board to her Harry.  Cloete soothes her all he can. . .  All right; you try to eat a mouthful, and we will go to make inquiries.

“He draws George out of the room:  Look here, she can’t go on board, but I shall.  I’ll see to it that he doesn’t stop in the ship too long.  Let’s go and find the coxswain of the life-boat. . . George follows him, shivering from time to time.  The waves are washing over the old pier; not much wind, a wild, gloomy sky over the bay.  In the whole world only one tug away off, heading to the seas, tossed in and out of sight every minute as regular as clockwork.

“They meet the coxswain and he tells them:  Yes!  He’s going out again.  No, they ain’t in danger on board—­not yet.  But the ship’s chance is very poor.  Still, if the wind doesn’t pipe up again and the sea goes down something might be tried.  After some talk he agrees to take Cloete on board; supposed to be with an urgent message from the owners to the captain.

“Whenever Cloete looks at the sky he feels comforted; it looks so threatening.  George Dunbar follows him about with a white face and saying nothing.  Cloete takes him to have a drink or two, and by and by he begins to pick up. . .  That’s better, says Cloete; dash me if it wasn’t like walking about with a dead man before.  You ought to be throwing up your cap, man.  I feel as if I wanted to stand in the street and cheer.  Your brother is safe, the ship is lost, and we are made men.

“Are you certain she’s lost? asks George.  It would be an awful blow after all the agonies I have gone through in my mind, since you first spoke to me, if she were to be got off—­and—­and—­all this temptation to begin over again. . .  For we had nothing to do with this; had we?