Going up on deck I found every face about me shining like the aurora, for the men had had good news all round, one having come into a fortune and another into the fatherhood of twins, and both being in a state of joy and excitement.

But all the good fellows were like boys.  Some of them (with laughter seasoned by a few tears) read me funny bits out of their wives’ letters—­bits too that were not funny, about having “a pretty fit of hysterics” at reading bad news of us and “wanting to kiss the newsboy” when he brought the paper contradicting it.

I did my best to play the game of rejoicing, pretending I had had good news also, and everything was going splendid.  But I found it hard enough to keep it going, especially while we were sailing back to the world, as we called it, and hearing from the crew the news of what had happened while we had been away.

First, there was the reason for the delay in the arrival of the ship, which had been due not to failure of the wireless at our end, but to a breakdown on Macquarie Island.

And then there was the account of the report of the loss of the Scotia in the gale going out, which had been believed on insufficient evidence (as I thought), but recorded in generous words of regret that sent the blood boiling to a man’s face and made him wish to heaven they could be true.

We were only five or six days sailing to New Zealand, but the strain to me was terrible, for the thought was always uppermost: 

“Why didn’t she write a word of welcome to reach me on my return to civilisation?”

When I was not talking to somebody that question was constantly haunting me.  To escape from it I joined the sports of my shipmates, who with joyful news in their hearts and fresh food in their stomachs were feeling as good as new in spite of all they had suffered.

But the morning we smelt land, the morning the cloud banks above the eastern horizon came out hard and fast and sure (no dreamland this time), I stood at the ship’s bow, saying nothing to anybody, only straining my eyes for the yet distant world we were coming back to out of that desolate white waste, and thinking: 

“Surely I’ll have news from her before nightfall.”

There was a big warm-hearted crowd on the pier at Port Lyttelton.  Treacle said, “Gawd.  I didn’t know there was so many people in the world, Guv’nor;” and O’Sullivan, catching sight of a pretty figure under a sunshade, tugged at my arm and cried (in the voice of an astronomer who has discovered a planet), “Commanther!  Commanther!  A girl!”

Almost before we had been brought to, a company of scientific visitors came aboard; but I was more concerned about the telegrams that had come at the same moment, so hurrying down to my cabin I tore them open like a vulture riving its prey—­always looking at the signatures first and never touching an envelope without thinking: