Chapter 17

IN PORT AT LAST.

Day had broken before the several denizens of the
Wilderness had all returned to their homes, the police
finished their inquiries, and all come back to its normal
quiet. Mrs. Westmacott had been left sleeping peacefully
with a small chloral draught to steady her nerves and a
handkerchief soaked in arnica bound round her head. It
was with some surprise, therefore, that the Admiral
received a note from her about ten o'clock, asking him to
be good enough to step in to her. He hurried in, fearing
that she might have taken some turn for the worse, but he
was reassured to find her sitting up in her bed, with
Clara and Ida Walker in attendance upon her. She had
removed the handkerchief, and had put on a little cap
with pink ribbons, and a maroon dressing-jacket, daintily
fulled at the neck and sleeves.

"My dear friend," said she as he entered, "I wish to
make a last few remarks to you. No, no," she continued,
laughing, as she saw a look of dismay upon his face. "I
shall not dream of dying for at least another thirty
years. A woman should be ashamed to die before she is
seventy. I wish, Clara, that you would ask
your father to step up. And you, Ida, just pass me
my cigarettes, and open me a bottle of stout."

"Now then," she continued, as the doctor joined their
party. "I don't quite know what I ought to say to you,
Admiral. You want some very plain speaking to."

"'Pon my word, ma'am, I don't know what you are
talking about."

"The idea of you at your age talking of going to sea,
and leaving that dear, patient little wife of yours at
home, who has seen nothing of you all her life! It's all
very well for you. You have the life, and the change,
and the excitement, but you don't think of her eating her
heart out in a dreary London lodging. You men are all
the same."

"Well, ma'am, since you know so much, you probably
know also that I have sold my pension. How am I to live
if I do not turn my hand to work?"

Mrs. Westmacott produced a large registered envelope
from beneath the sheets and tossed it over to the old
seaman.

"That excuse won't do. There are your pension
papers. Just see if they are right."

He broke the seal, and out tumbled the very papers
which he had made over to McAdam two days before.

"But what am I to do with these now?" he cried in
bewilderment.

"You will put them in a safe place, or get a friend
to do so, and, if you do your duty, you will go to your
wife and beg her pardon for having even for an instant
thought of leaving her."

The Admiral passed his hand over his rugged forehead.
"This is very good of you, ma'am" said he, "very good and
kind, and