Next day, a haggard and desolate figure, he appeared in the cloak-room of the University where the examination results were displayed. In a dream he realised that he was now a Bachelor of Medicine, but in the realisation there was none of the joy that he had anticipated. He stood before the board bewildered, until W.G. came up behind him and wrung his hand. “You look as if you’d been making a night of it, my boy,” he said. “Come and have some coffee at the Dousita.” W.G. was on the top of himself. “It was a pretty near thing. The external examiner in Medicine gave me hell; but it’s all right. God! . . . it’s difficult to believe, isn’t it? What are you going to do?” “I don’t know. A voyage, I should think.” He hadn’t thought of it before. “That’s not a bad idea. Bit of a rest cure, eh? That’s the only disadvantage, I don’t mind telling you, of being married. I couldn’t leave the missus.” W.G. babbled on happily. “Did you see the evening paper?” he said. “I see that fellow Griffin’s done for. I always said he’d come to a nasty, sticky end. Some woman or other. . . . I remember your saying that he couldn’t play footer because of his heart. Ah, well . . . that’s one swine the less, poor devil!” When W.G. left him, Edwin called for a timetable and looked out the trains to Liverpool. There was one that started in half an hour. He caught it, and next morning presented himself at a shipping office in Water Street. The medical superintendent received him. “You want a ship? Well, you know, you look very young. When were you qualified?” “Yesterday,” Edwin confessed. “Very young. Still, you won’t be stale. You don’t _drink_, by any chance?” “I’m practically a total abstainer.” The man scrutinised Edwin’s haggard eyes. “H’m. . . . Well, as it happens, one of our men has failed us. I’ll give you a ship, the _Macao_, if you can sail to-morrow. Rather short notice, eh?” “I think I can do it. What about equipment?” “Oh, we don’t go in for brass-bound uniforms on our ships. Ten pounds a month and bonus. What?” “Where is she going to?” “China. You may call at Japan for coal with luck. See the world, you know. That’s what most of you fellows are after. You’ll have to go aboard to-night. Birkenhead Docks.” “I’ll he there.” And with trembling hands he signed his contract. In a wintry evening he crossed the Mersey ferry. A salt wind from the west boomed up the channel. Edwin, in the bows, felt his face drenched with spray. “It’s clean,” he thought. “It will make me cleaner. That’s what I need. I don’t believe I shall ever feel anything again, until I’m washed clean. I’m old . . . old and numb. I’ve lost my sense of enjoyment. I wonder if it will ever come back to me!” As he stood there in the salt breeze, some words of Traherne, his mother’s countryman, came into his mind: