ALL the rest of the day Hunch paced up and down on the shore ice, watching the schooner until the foremast went over and the timber was strewn for a mile along the beach.

At dusk two of the crew men came up and made Hunch go home. He spent the evening stretched out on the bed, trying to think. Later he fell asleep, and in the morning, when he awoke, his clothes felt heavy and stiff. After breakfast he went up the beach. The Dean was battered out of shape. Two fragments of the foremast had been cast up on the ice, but the mainmast had disappeared. He stayed until he was sure that the schooner was a total loss, then he returned to his room.

A year earlier in Hunch’s life such a catastrophe would have set him drinking; but now, while he thought of it for a moment, the idea of a bout in Herve’s bar-room with the old crowd of loafers, who would know exactly why he had come, and would, before the night was over, probably know all about his state of mind, did not appeal to him. He could not bring himself to go to Bartlett’s; he did not want Jess to see him when he was weak and unable to help himself. But on the second evening after the wreck, Jim Bartlett came up and found him lying on the bed with his clothes on.

“Good evening, Hunch,” he said. “Kind of hard luck; ain’t it?”

“Sit down,” said Hunch.

“Thanks, can’t stay but a minute. I just wanted to talk to you—you see I’ve been talking with Jess. She’s all broke up about the schooner. ‘Most as bad as you are. She thinks a lot of you, Hunch. She says you ain’t been ‘round.”

“No, I ain’t yet.”

“She says she ............