Then the girl did recover her wits and took herself off. But the chance had slipped away, and when I would have put my arms about Jenny's shoulders she gently released herself, and politely invited me to come and see papa. As I entered the drawing-room I managed to whisper, "Jenny, I've killed him." She started, and would have held me back, but the Captain had seen me, and called out a hearty, "Tommy, boy, come along in." I only felt a keen squeeze at my hand. Jenny had understood. So the vision of my home-coming wasn't realized in all the wonderful colours in which I had painted it in my imagination. But still, there was Jenny before me; and while the Captain chatted, questioning me of my experiences, comparing notes of foreign towns and ways, and storms and adventures at sea, I watched the slim little girl who had grown wonderfully tall and slender in the passage of a single year. Indeed I didn't quite know whether it was the same Jenny I had played and quarreled with only a twelvemonth ago. It wasn't so much that she had grown; rather she seemed to have settled to a subdued seriousness not quite in keeping with the Jenny of my games and squabbles. I couldn't hear her saying now, "I hate you," as she had used to do. And yet a gesture here and there, and the tone of her voice when she threw in a quick word, touched at memories of the past, linking up this grave-eyed girl with the child of the year before. As the evening wore away I had quite accepted the change in her, and the thought did just come to me that she too must have been surveying me with something of the same enquiry. I wondered whether she was as satisfied with the new Tommy as I was with the new Jenny. For though at first the change in her had taken me aback, I soon realized I was more head over heels in love with the charming girl who sat there at her father's feet, solemnly resting her eyes on mine, and now and again broadening her lips in a wonderful smile, than ever I had been with the bright vivid tempestuous little creature I had known at Sunset Towers. For now there seemed to be a depth and reserve behind those eyes, whereas before their glitter had told of a wonderful keen life, it is true, but one that played merely on the surface of things. I had little leisure to notice the Captain. He was extraordinarily kind, even boisterous, in his welcome. He asked but little of my truancy from Sunset Towers, and spoke chiefly of my doings at sea. He showed nothing of the dark fear that had used to overshadow his face even in his most genial moments. I wondered whether somehow he had heard of his enemy's death, though not knowing who had rid him of his tormentor. But I said nothing of the matter. With the memory of that dark evening when I had parted with him last I was cautious how I spoke of dangerous things. And in any case it would keep. Moreover, the thought of it only came to me in fitful starts, for my heart was with the daughter, not the father.