Almost before we had been brought to, a company of scientific visitors came aboard; but I was more concerned about the telegrams that had come at the same moment, so hurrying down to my cabin I tore them open like a vulture riving its prey--always looking at the signatures first and never touching an envelope without thinking:

"Oh God, what will be inside of it?"

There was nothing from my dear one! Invitations to dine, to lecture, to write books, to do this and that and Heaven knows what, but never a word from her who was more to me than all the world besides.

This made me more than ever sure of the "voices" that had called me back from the 88th latitude, so I decided instantly to leave our ship in New Zealand, in readiness for our next effort, and getting across to Sydney to take the first fast steamer home.

The good people at Port Lyttelton were loath to let us go. But after I had made my excuses, ("crazy to get back to wives and sweethearts, you know") they sent a school of boys (stunning little chaps in Eton suits) to sing us off with "Forty Years On"--which brought more of my mother into my eyes than I knew to be left there.

At Sydney we had the same experience--the same hearty crowds, the same welcome, the same invitations, to which we made the same replies, and then got away by a fast liner which happened to be ready to sail.

On the way "back to the world" I had slung together a sort of a despatch for the newspaper which had promoted our expedition (a lame, limping thing for want of my darling's help to make it go), saying something about the little we had been able to do but more about what we meant, please God, to do some day.

"She'll see that, anyway, and know we're coming back," I thought.

But to make doubly sure I sent two personal telegrams, one to my dear one at Castle Raa and the other to my old people at home, asking for answers to Port Said.

Out on the sea again I was tormented by the old dream of the crevassed glacier; and if anybody wonders why a hulking chap who had not been afraid of a ninety-mile blizzard in the region of the Pole allowed himself to be kept awake at night by a buzzing in the brain, all I can say is that it was so, and I know nothing more about it.

Perhaps my recent experience with the "wireless" persuaded me that if two sticks stuck in the earth could be made to communicate with each other over hundreds of miles, two hearts that loved each other knew no limitations of time or space.

In any case I was now so sure that my dear one had called me home from the Antarctic that by the time we reached Port Said, and telegrams were pouring in on me, I had worked myself up to such a fear that I dared not open them.

From sheer dread of the joy or sorrow that might be enclosed in the yellow covers, I got O'Sullivan down in my cabin to read my telegrams, while I scanned his face and nearly choked with my own tobacco smoke.

There was nothing from my dear one! Nothing from my people at home either!

O'Sullivan got it into his head that I was worrying about my parents, and tried to comfort me by saying that old folks never dreamt of telegraphing, but by the holy immaculate Mother he'd go bail there would be a letter for me before long.

There was.

We stayed two eternal days at Port Said while the vessel was taking coal for the rest of the voyage, and almost at the moment of sailing a letter arrived from Ellan, which, falling into O'Sullivan's hands first, sent him flying through the steamer and shouting at the top of his voice:

"Commanther! Commanther!"

The passengers gave room for him, and told me afterwards of his beaming face. And when he burst into my cabin I too felt sure he had brought me good news, which he had, though it was not all that I wanted.

"The way I was sure there would be a letter for you soon, and by the holy St. Patrick and St. Thomas, here it is," he cried.

The letter was from my father, and I had to brace myself before I could read it.

It was full of fatherly love, motherly love, too, and the extravagant pride my dear good old people had of me ("everybody's talking of you, my boy, and there's nothing else in the newspapers"); but not a word about my Mary--or only one, and that seemed worse than none at all.

"You must have heard of the trouble at Castle Raa. Very sad, but this happy hour is not the time to say anything about it."

Nothing more! Only reams and reams of sweet parental chatter which (God forgive me!) I would have gladly given over and over again for one plain sentence about my darling.

Being now more than ever sure that some kind of catastrophe had overtaken my poor little woman, I telegraphed to her again, this time (without knowing what mischief I was making) at the house of Daniel O'Neill--telling myself that, though the man was a brute who had sacrificed his daughter to his lust of rank and power and all the rest of his rotten aspirations, he was her father, and, if her reprobate of a husband had turned her out, he must surely have taken her in.

"Cable reply to Malta. Altogether too bad not hearing from you," I said.

A blind, hasty, cruel telegram, but thank God she never received it!

M.C.

[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM]

NINETY-EIGHTH CHAPTER

Day by day it became more and more difficult for me to throw dust in my own eyes about the Olivers.

One evening on reaching their house a little after six, as usual, I found the front door open, the kitchen empty save for baby, who, sitting up in her cot, was holding quiet converse with her toes, and the two Olivers talking loudly (probably by pre-arrangement) in the room upstairs.

The talk was about baby, which was "a noosance," interfering with a man's sleep by night and driving him out of his home by day. And how much did they get for it? Nothing, in a manner of speaking. What did the woman (meaning me) think the "bleedin' place" was--"a philanthropic institooshun" or a "charity orginisation gime"?

After this I heard the bricklayer thunder downstairs in his heavy boots and go out of the house without coming into the kitchen, leaving his wife (moral coward that he was) to settle his account with me.

Then Mrs. Oliver came down, with many sighs, expressed surprise at seeing me and fear that I might have overheard what had been said in the room above.

"Sorry to say I've been having a few words with Ted, ma'am, and tell you the truth it was about you."

Ted had always been against her nursing, and she must admit it wasn't wise of a woman to let her man go to the public-house to get out of the way of a crying child; but though she was a-running herself off her feet to attend to the pore dear, and milk was up a penny, she had growd that fond of my baby since she lost her own that she couldn't abear to part with the jewel, and perhaps if I could pay a little more--Ted said seven, but she said six, and a shilling a week wouldn't hurt me--she could over-persuade him to let the dear precious stay.

I was trembling with indignation while I listened to the woman's whining (knowing well I was being imposed upon), but I was helpless and so I agreed.

My complacency had a bad effect on the Olivers, who continued to make fresh extortions, until their demands almost drove me to despair.

I thought a climax had been reached when one night a neighbour came to the door and, calling Mrs. Oliver into the lobby, communicated some news in a whisper which brought her back with a frightened face for her cloak and hat, saying "something was a matter with Ted" and she must "run away quick to him."

When she returned an hour or two later she was crying, and with sobs between her words she told me that Ted (having taken a drop too much) had "knocked somebody about" at the "Sun." As a consequence he had fallen into the hands of the police, and would be brought before the magistrate the following morning, when, being unable to pay the fine, he would have to "do time"--just as a strike was a-coming on, too, and he was expecting good pay from the Strike Committee.

"And what is to happen to me and the baby while my 'usband is in prison?" she said.

I knew it was an act of weakness, but, thinking of my child and the danger of its being homeless, I asked what the amount of the fine would probably be, and being told ten-and-six, I gave the money, though it was nearly all I had in the world.

I paid for my weakness, though, and have reason to remember it.

The extortions of the Olivers had brought me to so narrow a margin between my earnings and expenses that I lay awake nearly all that night thinking what I could do to increase the one or reduce the other. The only thing I found possible was to change to cheaper quarters. So next morning, with a rather heavy heart, I asked Mrs. Abramovitch if the room at the back of the house was still empty, and hearing that it was I moved into it the same day.

That was a small and not a very wise economy.

My new room was cheerless as well as dark, with no sights but the clothes that were drying from the pulley-lines and no sounds but the whoops of the boys of the neighbourhood playing at "Red Indians" on the top of the yard walls.

But it was about the same as the other in size and furniture, and after I had decorated it with my few treasures--the Reverend Mother's rosary, which I hung on the head of the bed, and my darling mother's miniature, which I pinned up over the fire--I thought it looked bright and homelike.