Two big blinding beads came into my eyes at that story, but they were soon dashed away by Martin who saw them coming and broke into the vernacular.  I broke into it, too, (hardly knowing that the well of my native speech was still there until I began to tap it), and we talked of Tommy the Mate and his “starboard eye,” called each other “bogh mulish,” said things were “middling,” spoke of the “threes” (trees) and the “tunder” (thunder), and remembered that “our Big Woman was a wicked devil and we wouldn’t trust but she’d burn in hell.”

How we laughed!  We laughed at everything; we laughed at nothing; we laughed until we cried; but I have often thought since that this was partly because we knew in our secret hearts that we were always hovering on the edge of tragic things.

Martin never once mentioned my husband or my marriage, or his letters to my father, the Bishop and Father Dan, which had turned out so terribly true; but we had our serious moments for all that, and one of them was when we were bending over a large chart which he had spread out on the table to show me the course of the ship through the Great Unknown, leaning shoulder to shoulder, so close that our heads almost touched, and I could see myself in his eyes as he turned to speak to me.

“You were a little under the weather yesterday, shipmate—­what was the cause of it?” he asked.

“Oh, we . . . we can talk of that another time, can’t we?” I answered, and then we both laughed again, goodness knows why, unless it was because we felt we were on the verge of unlocking the doors of each other’s souls.

Oh that joyful, wonderful, heart-swelling day!  But no day ever passed so quickly.  At half-past six Martin said we must be going back, or I should be late for dinner, and a few minutes afterwards we were in the launch, which had returned to fetch us.

I had had such a happy time on the ship that as we were steaming off I kissed my hand to her, whereupon Treacle, who was standing at the top of the companion, taking the compliment to himself, returned the salute with affectionate interest, which sent Martin and me into our last wild shriek of laughter.

The return trip was just as delightful as the coming out had been, everything looking different the other way round, for the sunset was like a great celestial fire which had been lighted in the western sky, and the big darkening city seemed to have turned its face to it.

Martin talked all the way back about a scheme he had afoot for going down to the region of the Pole again in order to set up some machinery that was to save life and otherwise serve humanity, and while I sat close up to him, looking into his flashing eyes—­they were still as blue as the bluest sea—­I said, again and again:  “How splendid!  How glorious!  What a great, great thing it will be for the world.”

“Won’t it?” he said, and his eyes sparkled like a boy’s.

Thus the time passed without our being aware how it was going, and we were back at Westminster Pier before I bethought me that of the sad and serious subject I had intended to speak about I had said nothing at all.