“But who gives you the pound?”

“The Pater, I tell you—­so long as I stop there I’m assured of a pound a week!  If I come any nearer to England the money stops.  They probably hope I’ll commit suicide and save them the expense of the pound a week.  It’ll even save them the expense of a funeral and buying mourning, won’t it?  I’ll do it in Sydney, you see.”

“But I never heard of such a funny thing in my life!  Paid to keep away from home!  What’s the matter with you?  What have you done?  It’s like the lepers in the Bible.”

“T-that’s what they say I am!” he burst out.  “They c-call me a disgrace, a drunkard!  They sent me down from the hospital because they said I was a drunkard.  The girl I was in love with threw me over because of that.  She was married three months ago to someone else.  That’s why I’m here now.  My third remittance trip—­”

He stopped, and she was horrified to hear him sobbing—­gasping, choking sobs that frightened her.

“I came home—­tried my damnedest to get a grip on things, but when she did that trick on me I saw red.  They’ve kicked me out now.”

“I am so sorry,” she said in a low voice.  “You must be so unhappy if you’re a drunkard—­whisky—­”

She broke off.  The old farm came gliding over the waves and settled round her with a sense of inevitability.  She saw the green baize door; she heard the crying of the wind, the scuttering of the rats:  she saw her father’s blazing eyes, red-rimmed and mad.  And then she heard him, pleading, talking to God.  Louis’s voice broke in on her dream.

“A drunkard—­that’s what I am now.”

“I didn’t think boys were drunkards,” she said casually.

“I’m twenty-seven.”

“Are you really?  All the boys at Lashnagar are grown up when they’re twenty-seven.  You seem so young.  You’re so shy and queer.  I’m nineteen,” she added.

“And you know,” he burst out in the midst of her words, “they can’t blame me!  It isn’t my own fault—­they know it’s in the family, only they haven’t the decency to admit it.  But I know—­different people in my family who are cut by the respectable ones—­I’ve raked them out, and ever since I’ve felt hopeless.”

“Oh no—­no,” she cried, suddenly throwing out her hands as if to ward off something horrible.  Leaning forwards she gripped his shoulder.  “It’s so silly!  Besides, think how cowardly it is to say you must do a thing because someone else has done it.”

“It’s killed lots of my people, or landed them in asylums—­they’re not talked about in the family, but I know it,” he raved.

“Well, I think you’re a perfect idiot,” she cried impatiently.  “Why, if you saw about twenty people on this ship walk overboard in a procession, that’s no reason why you should do it too, is it?”