“Thanks,” said Lestrange; “I can wait.”

He had waited eight years, what mattered a few minutes now? But at no time in the eight years had he suffered such suspense, for his heart knew that now, just now in this commonplace little house, from the lips of, perhaps, the husband of that commonplace woman, he was going to learn either what he feared to hear, or what he hoped.

It was a depressing little room; it was so clean, and looked as though it were never used. A ship imprisoned in a glass bottle stood upon the mantelpiece, and there were shells from faraway places, pictures of ships in sand—all the things one finds as a rule adorning an old sailor’s home.

Lestrange, as he sat waiting, could hear movements from the next room—probably the invalid’s, which they were preparing for his reception. The distant sounds of the derricks and winches came muffled through the tightly-shut window that looked as though it never had been opened. A square of sunlight lit the upper part of the cheap lace curtain on the right of the window, and repeated its pattern vaguely on the lower part of the wall opposite. Then a bluebottle fly awoke suddenly into life and began to buzz and drum against the window pane, and Lestrange wished that they would come.

A man of his temperament must necessarily, even under the happiest circumstances, suffer in going through the world; the fine fibre always suffers when brought into contact with the coarse. These people were as kindly disposed as anyone else. The advertisement and the face and manners of the visitor might have told them that it was not the time for delay, yet they kept him waiting whilst they arranged bed-quilts and put medicine bottles straight—as if he could see!

At last the door opened, and the woman said:

“Will you step this way, sir?”

She showed him into a bedroom opening off the passage. The room was neat and clean, and had that indescribable appearance which marks the bedroom of the invalid.

In the bed, making a mountain under the counterpane with an enormously distended stomach, lay a man, black-bearded, and with his large, capable, useless hands spread out on the coverlet—hands ready and willing, but debarred from work. Without moving his body, he turned his head slowly and looked at the newcomer. This slow movement was not from weakness or disease, it was the slow, emotionless nature of the man speaking.

“This is the gentleman, Silas,” said the woman, speaking over Lestrange’s shoulder. Then she withdrew and closed the door.

“Take a chair, sir,” said the sea captain, flapping one of his hands on the counterpane as if in wearied protest against his own helplessness. “I haven’t the pleasure of your name, but the missus tells me you’re come about the advertisement I lit on yester-even.”

He took a paper, folded small, that lay beside him, and held it out to his visitor. It was a Sidney Bulletin three years old.