Johnny Eyre uttered a short cry. Lavender looked ahead and saw that some black object was disappearing among the waves. "What a fright I got!" Eyre said with a laugh. "I never saw the fellow come near, and he came up just below the bowsprit. He came heeling over as quiet as a mouse. I say, Lavender, I think we might as well cut it now: my eyes are quite bewildered with the light on the water. I couldn't make out a kraken if it was coming across our bows." "Don't be in a hurry, Johnny. We'll put her out a bit, and then let her drift back. I want to tell you a story." "Oh, all right," he said; and so they put her head round, and soon she was lying over before the breeze, and slowly drawing away from those outlines of the coast which showed them where Tarbert harbor cut into the land. And then once more they let her drift, and young Eyre took a nip of whisky and settled himself so as to hear Lavender's story, whatever it might be. "You knew I was married?" "Yes." "Didn't you ever wonder why my wife did not come here?" "Why should I wonder? Plenty of fellows have to spend half the year apart from their wives: the only thing in your case I couldn't understand was the necessity for your doing it. For you know that's all nonsense about your want of funds." "It isn't nonsense, Johnny. But now, if you like, I will tell you why my wife has never come here." Then he told the story, out there under the stars, with no thought of interruption, for there was a world of moving water around them. It was the first time he had let any one into his confidence, and perhaps the darkness aided his revelations; but at any rate he went over all the old time, until it seemed to his companion that he was talking to himself, so aimless and desultory were his pathetic reminiscences. He called her Sheila, though Eyre had never heard her name. He spoke of her father as though Eyre must have known him. And yet this rambling series of confessions and self-reproaches and tender memories did form a certain sort of narrative, so that the young fellow sitting quietly in the boat there got a pretty fair notion of what had happened. "You are an unlucky fellow," he said to Lavender. "I never heard anything like that. But you know you must have exaggerated a good deal about it: I should like to hear her story. I am sure you could not have treated her like that." "God knows how I did, but the truth is just as I have told you; and although I was blind enough at the time, I can read the whole story now in letters of fire. I hope you will never have such a thing constantly before your eyes, Johnny." The lad was silent for some time, and then he said, rather timidly, "Do you think, Lavender, she knows how sorry you are?" "If she did, what good would that do?" said the other.