Captain Bowers, anxious to see him and sound him with a few carefully-prepared questions, noted his continued absence with regret.  Despairing at last of a visit from Mr. Chalk, he resolved to pay one himself.

Mr. Chalk, who was listening to his wife, rose hastily at his entrance, and in great confusion invited him to a chair which was already occupied by Mrs. Chalk’s work-basket.  The captain took another and, after listening to an incoherent statement about the weather, shook his head reproachfully at Mr. Chalk.

“I thought something must have happened to you,” he said.  “Why, it must be weeks since I’ve seen you.”

“Weeks?” said Mrs. Chalk, suddenly alert.

“Why, he went out the day before yesterday to call on you.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Chalk, with an effort, “so I did, but half-way to yours I got a nail in my shoe and had to come home.”

“Home!” exclaimed his wife.  “Why, you were gone two hours and thirty-five minutes.”

“It was very painful,” said Mr. Chalk, as the captain stared in open-eyed astonishment at this exact time-keeping.  “One time I thought that I should hardly have got back.”

“But you didn’t say anything about it,” persisted his wife.

“I didn’t want to alarm you, my dear,” said Mr. Chalk.

Mrs. Chalk looked at him, but, except for a long, shivering sigh which the visitor took for sympathy, made no comment.

“I often think that I must have missed a great deal by keeping single,” said the latter.  “It must be very pleasant when you’re away to know that there is somebody at home counting the minutes until your return.”

Mr. Chalk permitted himself one brief wondering glance in the speaker’s direction, and then gazed out of window.

“There’s no companion like a wife,” continued the captain.  “Nobody else can quite share your joys and sorrows as she can.  I’ve often thought how pleasant it must be to come home from a journey and tell your wife all about it:  where you’ve been, what you’ve done, and what you’re going to do.”

Mr. Chalk stole another look at him; Mrs. Chalk, somewhat suspicious, followed his example.

“It’s a pity you never married, Captain Bowers,” she said, at length; “most men seem to do all they can to keep things from their wives.  But one of these days——­”

She finished the sentence by an expressive glance at her husband.  Captain Bowers, suddenly enlightened, hastened to change the subject.

“I haven’t seen Tredgold or Stobell either,” he said, gazing fixedly at Mr. Chalk.

“They—­they were talking about you only the other day,” said that gentleman, nervously.  “Is Miss Drewitt well?”

“Quite well,” said the captain, briefly.  “I was beginning to think you had all left Binchester,” he continued; “gone for a sea voyage or something.”

Mr. Chalk laughed uneasily.  “I thought that Joseph wasn’t looking very well the last time I saw you,” he said, with an imploring glance at the captain to remind him of the presence of Mrs. Chalk.