“But,” the pilot was perplexed—­“but, Captain, you ain’t got no other hand..”

“No!” Captain Price shook his head.  “But I rang the engines with it all the same.  I rang the Burdock out of a bump with it; and—­” he hesitated a moment and nodded his head sideways at the limp, lolling body of his son—­“I rang his honor off the mud with it.”

The pilot cleared his brow; he simply gave the matter up.  “And what about now?” he asked.  “He ain’t fit to be trusted with her?”

“No,” said Captain Price firmly.  “He’s going to retire from the sea; and till he does I’ll sail as a passenger.  And then I’ll take the Burdock again.  She don’t care about that old spar of mine, the Burdock don’t.”

XV

THE WIDOWER

In the evening they sat together, John Morrison and his mother, with the curtains drawn, and the clear fire glowing on the red bricks of the fireplace.  The old lady, after her custom, was prone to silence.  Since Hilda’s death she had said little, sparing the occasion the triviality of useless words.  That afternoon she had ridden with her son to the funeral, holding him up with her strength, fortifying him with her courage.  But now that his wife was gone for ever, and the pleasant house was overcast with its haunting emptiness, it seemed that her power was gone.

She had a piece of knitting to occupy her fingers, and over it she watched her son.  He had been stunned when Hilda died, bewildered and uncomprehending; for no young man fully grasps the meaning of death.  Now, as he sat, he seemed to be convincing himself.  He had brought down his dead wife’s work-basket and a drawer from her dressing-table.  He sat in a low arm-chair, and had them beside him on the floor, and fingered deliberately among their contents for definite things, little landmarks of lost days that stabbed him with their associations.  But what stirred his mother was not the sorrow of his loss so much as the uncertainty of parted lips and knitted brows that softened his thin, aquiline face, so strongly in contrast with his habit of brisk assurance.

She spoke at last.  “John, dear, you should go to bed now,” she said.  “It’s past eleven, my boy; and I’m afraid you’ll wear yourself out.”

He had a small silver-backed hand-mirror in his hands.  He had been staring into the glass of it for ten minutes.  He looked up now and shook his head.  “I couldn’t,” he answered.  “I couldn’t, mother.  There’s no sleep in me.”

“But John——­” began the mother again.

“Please don’t bother about me,” he interrupted.  “I couldn’t sleep, really.  And I couldn’t bear to lie awake—­alone.”  His eyes dropped toward the mirror again.  “You know,” he said, “it’s only now, mother, that I realize that Hilda is really gone.  I can’t explain it very well, but before this evening it seemed—­well, it seemed idiotic to think that my wife was dead.  It felt impossible, somehow.”