It was funny; the glass stood high, but those black squalls kept coming and going all afternoon, while I was at work up in the light-room.  And I worked hard, to keep myself busy.  First thing I knew it was five, and no sign of the boat yet.  It began to get dim and kind of purplish-gray over the land.  The sun was down.  I lit up, made everything snug, and got out the night-glasses to have another look for that boat.  He’d said he intended to get back before five.  No sign.  And then, standing there, it came over me that of course he wouldn’t be coming off—­he’d be hunting her, poor old fool.  It looked like I had to stand two men’s watches that night.

Never mind.  I felt like myself again, even if I hadn’t had any dinner or supper.  Pride came to me that night on the walk-around, watching the boats go by—­little boats, big boats, the Boston boat with all her pearls and her dance-music.  They couldn’t see me; they didn’t know who I was; but to the last of them, they depended on me.  They say a man must be born again.  Well, I was born again.  I breathed deep in the wind.

Dawn broke hard and red as a dying coal.  I put out the light and started to go below.  Born again; yes, sir.  I felt so good I whistled in the well, and when I came to the first door on the stair I reached out in the dark to give it a rap for luck.  And then, sir, the hair prickled all over my scalp, when I found my hand just going on and on through the air, the same as it had gone once before, and all of a sudden I wanted to yell, because I thought I was going to touch flesh.  It’s funny what their just forgetting to close their door did to me, isn’t it?

Well, I reached for the latch and pulled it to with a bang and ran down as if a ghost was after me.  I got up some coffee and bread and bacon for breakfast.  I drank the coffee.  But somehow I couldn’t eat, all along of that open door.  The light in the room was blood.  I got to thinking.  I thought how she’d talked about those men, women, and children on the rocks, and how she’d made to bathe her hands over the rail.  I almost jumped out of my chair then; it seemed for a wink she was there beside the stove watching me with that queer half-smile—­really, I seemed to see her for a flash across the red table-cloth in the red light of dawn.

“Look here!” said I to myself, sharp enough; and then I gave myself a good laugh and went below.  There I took a look out of the door, which was still open, with the ladder hanging down.  I made sure to see the poor old fool come pulling around the point before very long now.

My boots were hurting a little, and, taking them off, I lay down on the cot to rest, and somehow I went to sleep.  I had horrible dreams.  I saw her again standing in that blood-red kitchen, and she seemed to be washing her hands, and the surf on the ledge was whining up the tower, louder and louder all the time, and what it whined was, “Night after night—­night after night.”  What woke me was cold water in my face.