He sat for a few minutes staring at the floor, his pipe with its filled bowl hanging idly from his hand. He seemed to be adjusting himself to new ideas, painfully making room for them by throwing overboard the old. Then he rose to his feet with a half-sigh, half-yawn,--and laughed. Sarah heard him, and started,--it was so like the old-time Jim! But though she might have winced in the old days, it did not trouble her now. If she had had no tenderness for the scapegrace lad she was not likely to pity the grown, successful man.... Without looking at her again he went across to the window and stared out. The pane swung open wide on its bent rod, and not a breath of wind troubled its buckled frame. Across the vanished sands the light still glowed from the ’Ship,’ red on the dark that seemed like a mere dissolution of everything into mist. "Old Fleming still at the ’Ship’?" he enquired, keeping his back turned. "And May?" His voice warmed again on the little name. "May’s married this many a year, I guess!" "Nay, not she!" Sarah said. "She’s not wed, nor like to be." Unconsciously she relaxed a little. "She was always terble sweet on Geordie, was May." The man looking out smiled at the light as if it had been a face. He spoke low, as if speaking to himself. "I’d sure forgot!" "I reckon she’s waiting for him yet, but I doubt she’ll wait till the Judgment, and after that!" "She was always a sticker, was May...." He swung round, cheerful again, though lacking the ecstasy with which he had come in. "Sweet on Geordie, was she? Well, I guess a live dog’s better than a dead lion! I’ll hop across for a chin." "You’ll loss yourself, crossing t’sand." "I’ve crossed it every night in my dreams!" He came back to her, with his face tender again, the thin flame of the candle showing his pleasant eyes and kindly lips. "Say, though!" he added anxiously. "I can come back?" "Best bide at t’ ’Ship.’" "But I’d a deal rather sleep here!" "Well, you wain’t, and that’s flat!" "There’s Geordie’s bed, ain’t there?" he urged her, in pleading tones. "I’ll lay you’ve kept it fixed for him all along!" "Ay,--for Geordie!" said Geordie’s mother, setting her mouth. "Couldn’t you kinder think I was Geordie once in a while?" "Nay." "Not for a mite of a minute?" His voice shook. "Nay, not I!" He lifted his shoulders, and let them droop again. "I’m sure coming back, though!" he finished, in his persistent way.... "Stop a shake, though! What about the tide?" His eyes turned from old custom to the table over the hearth, and, crossing over to it, he struck a light. The silver box in his hand flashed a tiny scintilla on the dusky air. He looked up at the table, but he did not see it, the match dwindling above his brooding face.