"He didn't say and I didn't ask, though one of the men with him said
something about going to the Grand Banks."
"Grand Banks, eh? That's comforting--it isn't more than a couple of
days' sail from here to the nearest edge of it, and twenty-odd
thousand or more square miles of shoal water to hunt over after you
get there. Had they taken their bait aboard, did you hear, Miss
Luce?"
"Yes, they had. That was yesterday afternoon late. His vessel was
leaking then, I heard him say to that nice-looking man--Maurice Blake
his name, did you say? A nice name Maurice, isn't it? Well, he said to
Maurice going out the door, 'Well, we'll put out and I callate--I
don't know how she'll get out but out we'll go to-night.' 'The sooner
you go the better it will suit me,' Blake said, and they went off
together."
"And how was Mr. Blake?"
"How do you mean? How did he act? My, I never saw such a man. Wouldn't
open his head all night--wouldn't drink, but just sat and smoked like
your friend there. Anything the matter with him?"
"With Maurice? Oh, in the way of aneurisms? Not that I know of. Oh,
yes, he has heart-trouble too, come to think. But I must be getting
back to the vessel."
"So soon?"
"Yes, we've got to go to sea. I'm like Dave Warner in that I'm going
to sea too."
"But nobody's driving you away." She had her eyes on Clancy's face
then.
He didn't look up--only stared into his glass.
She was silent for a full minute. Clancy said nothing. "Nobody's
driving you away," she said again.
At that Clancy looked at her. "There's no telling," he said at first,
and then hastily, "Oh, no--of course nobody's driving me to sea."
"Then what's your hurry?"
I got up and went to the door then. I heard the sound of a scraping
chair and then of Clancy standing up. A moment's quiet and then it
was: "No, dear, I can't stay--nobody's driving me away, I know that.
I'm sure you wouldn't--not with your heart. And you've a good heart if
you'd only give it a chance. But I can't stay."
"And why not? You won't, you mean. Well, I never thought you were
_that_ kind of a man."
"No? Well, don't go to giving me any moral rating. Don't go to
over-rating me--or maybe you'd call it under-rating. But you see, it's
my friend that's calling."
"And you're going out in this gale?"
"Gale. I'd go if it was a hundred gales. Good-by--and take care of
yourself, dear."
"And will you come back if you don't find him?"
"Lord, Lord, how can I say? Can anybody say who's coming back and who
isn't?"
He went by me and out the door. She looked after him, but he never
turned--only plunged out of the house and into the street and I right
after him.