The opportunity occurred the very next day. Comethup went to tea with the captain, firmly resolved to unbosom himself about the whole matter. But he let the precious moments slip by, and talked of everything else under the sun, and tried to appear interested in all that the captain said, while his mind was leaping back to that desolate garden and to the little figure wandering alone in it. He remembered, too, with a sudden hot sensation of shame, that the child had cried, "Come again to-morrow!" and here was to-morrow. Yet he sat there, saying never a word of what filled his mind, until the moment arrived when it was necessary for him to return home. For the captain was punctual in all things, and Comethup arrived at the house at an exact hour, and left it at another equally rigidly defined. Comethup got as far as the doorstep before he made up his mind to say anything; and then, as he brought his hand down from the salute, he said hurriedly, "I--I wanted to speak to you--about something--sir." The captain looked down at the small figure gravely. "Important?" he asked. Comethup felt his courage oozing. "Not--not very," he replied. "Keep it till to-morrow," said the captain, nodding at him. "No time now, you know. Good-bye." Comethup saluted again, and went miserably away. He returned home, and sat for a long time at the window, thinking about the child. He had not promised that he would go again to see her; but it had seemed like a promise, and he could not bear the thought that she might be waiting there, with her great, dark, eager eyes straining toward the gate, looking for him. It was the first time that any real or definite sorrow had touched his life--the first time that any living thing had seemed dependent on him for happiness. With the captain it was different; it was impossible for Comethup's mind to grasp the idea that he was all-important in the captain's bare existence; that the captain watched for him, day after day, and felt his old heart jump a little as the boy swung up the garden path, as he might have felt it jump, in years gone by, at the coming of a woman. Comethup did not understand that; he saw only in the captain's kindness and patronage of himself a very great and sweet graciousness, a something that the captain went out of his way to do, because he was very kind and very great. Comethup adored the captain, but he did not know that the captain would have willingly consented to be pierced through and through with his own old sword hanging over the dim little looking-glass in his cottage parlour, if he could thereby have served Comethup. The hunger at Comethup's heart grew stronger as the evening wore on. A wind had sprung up, bringing with it some gusts of rain, and flinging little splashes on to Comethup's face as he sat with his chin in his hands at the open window. At last, heedless of wind or rain, he caught up his cap, and set off at a run for the captain's house.