"I call it Uncle Kirke's ship," said the boy. "Uncle Kirke has gone
away."
The name recalled nothing to her memory. No remembrances but old
remembrances lived in her now. "Gone?" she repeated absently, thinking
what she should say to her little friend next.
"Yes," said the boy. "Gone to China."
Even from the lips of a child that word struck her to the heart. She put
Kirke's little nephew off her lap, and instantly left the beach.
As she turned back to the house, the struggle of the past night renewed
itself in her mind. But the sense of relief which the child had brought
to her, the reviving tenderness which she had felt while he sat on her
knee, influenced her still. She was conscious of a dawning hope, opening
freshly on her thoughts, as the boy's innocent eyes had opened on her
face when he came to her on the beach. Was it too late to turn back?
Once more she asked herself that question, and now, for the first time,
she asked it in doubt.
She ran up to her own room with a lurking distrust in her changed self
which warned her to act, and not to think. Without waiting to remove her
shawl or to take off her hat, she opened her writing-case and addressed
these lines to Captain Wragge as fast as her pen could trace them:
"You will find the money I promised you inclosed in this.
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