‘It’s been two years,’ said Walter West. ‘I don’t know whether you’ve ever been deprived of the company of the woman you love for two years, sir, but I can tell you that it’s days of sadness and nights of real despair. I used to sit up in my bed some nights and look at the moon, and think to myself that same moon was shining over my Hannah even then, and that used to break my heart.’

‘I’m sure both of you have borne it with tremendous fortitude,’ Collis said.

‘Thank you, sir. I think we did our best. It’s been a trial right to the end, though. My wife got sick of the fever crossing the Panama isthmus, and she had to stay in the hospital for a couple of weeks. The captain of the California sent me a note yesterday afternoon that she was recovering, though, and I thank God for that.’

‘She’s lucky,’ whispered Collis.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I said, she’s lucky.’

‘Yes, I guess she is. But I’m luckier still. I’ll have her here in a week, if all goes well, and then you can bet a gold mine to a hole in the ground that I’m going to be the happiest and the proudest man in the whole of this city.’

Walter West finished packing up the workbox and set it square on the top of the counter.

‘There,’ he said. ‘I guess that’ll make your young niece’s day for her.’

‘Yes,’ said Collis. He shook two silver dollars out of his purse and laid them on the counter next to the parcel. Two sharp clicks of metal on glass. ‘You won’t think I’m impertinent if I ask you a question?’ he said.

‘I guess not. I guess it depends what the question is.’

‘Well, it’s this. When you said about your wife … well, being away so long …’

‘Yes?’

Collis looked at him carefully. If there was any flinching, no matter how slight, he wanted to catch it. ‘Did you ever, during those two years that you were without her, did you ever feel that perhaps you didn’t love her any more?’

Walter West frowned. The sun was on his hand, and his wedding band, scored with thousands of scratches from hundreds of days of lonely work, gave off a dull, solid gleam.

‘I’m not sure I get your drift,’ he said, obviously a little upset. ‘I’ve loved my wife from the day I met her, and if anything at all, I’m fonder of her now than I was when I had to leave her behind.’