‘Yes,’ answered Lucius thoughtfully. ‘I want a long talk with you, my dear old Schanck. The time when we parted company seems to me something like a dream. I can just remember our parting. But when I look back to those days I see them through a mist—like the dim outline of the hills in the cloudy autumn daybreak. Our journey through the forest with those Canadians—our arrival at New Westminster. I know that such things were, but I feel as if they must have happened to some one else, and not to me. Yet all that went _before_ that time is clear enough, God knows. I shall never lose the memory of _that_.’ ‘Ah, you was fery ill—you valked in your head, for long time. If I hat not mate one little hole in your arm, and let the blood spurten, like one fountain, you might have shall died becomen been,’ said the German, somewhat vague in his grasp of English compound tenses, which he was apt to prolong indefinitely, ‘Yes, you valk in your talk—vat it is you say? ramblen. But come now, shall ve dake a gab—it is long vays to Pattersea—or vait for a steamer at Dowers Varf.’ ‘The steamer will be quicker, perhaps,’ said Lucius, ‘and we can talk on board her. There are some questions I want to ask you, Schanck. I shall have to touch upon a hateful subject; but there are some points on which I want to be satisfied.’ ‘You shall ask all questions das you vish. Come quick to Dowers Varf.’ ‘Stay,’ said Lucius, ‘I am expected somewhere this evening, and the Battersea voyage will take some time. You want to get home at once, I suppose, old fellow?’ ‘That want I much. There is the little housewife. I want that she has not run away to see.’ ‘Run away to sea,’ cried Lucius, puzzled. ‘Has she any proclivity of that kind?’ ‘I want to see she not has run away. Where is it you English put your verb?’ ‘Well, just let me send a message, Salom’—Salom was short for Absalom, a pet name bestowed on the little German in the brighter days of their expedition—‘and I’m at your service.’ Lucius scrawled a few lines in pencil on a leaf of his pocket-book, which he tore out and folded into a little note. This small missive he addressed to Miss Sivewright, Cedar House, and intrusted to a porter, whose general integrity and spotlessness of character were certified by a metal badge, and who promised to deliver the note for the modest sum of sixpence. The note was only to inform Lucille that Lucius had an unexpected engagement for that evening, and could not be at Cedar House till late. It had become a custom for him to drink tea in the sick room, with Lucille, and Mrs. Milderson, who was overflowing with sympathy. This small duty accomplished, Lucius accompanied Mr. Schanck to Tower Wharf, where they speedily embarked on a steamer bound for the Temple Pier, where they could transfer themselves to another bark which plied between that pier and Chelsea.