The brig sailed on a Monday morning in spring; but Joanna did not witness its departure.  She could not bear the sight that she had been the means of bringing about.  Knowing this, her husband told her overnight that they were to sail some time before noon next day hence when, at five the next morning, she heard them about downstairs, she did not hasten to , but lay trying to nerve herself for the parting, imagining they would leave about nine, as her husband had done on his previous voyage.  When she did descend she words chalked upon the sloping face of the bureau; but no husband or sons.  In the hastily-scrawled lines Shadrach said they had gone off thus not to pain her by a leave-taking; and the sons had chalked under his words: ‘Good-bye, mother!’  
She rushed to the , and looked down the harbour towards the blue of the sea, but she could only see the masts and sails of the Joanna; no human figures.  ‘’Tis I have sent them!’ she said wildly, and burst into tears.  In the house the chalked ‘Good-bye’ nearly broke her heart.  But when she had re-entered the front room, and looked across at Emily’s, a gleam of triumph lit her thin face at her anticipated release from the of .
 
To do Emily Lester justice, her assumption of superiority was mainly a figment of Joanna’s brain.  That the circumstances of the merchant’s wife were more than Joanna’s, the former could not ; though whenever the two met, which was not very often now, Emily endeavoured to the difference by every means in her power.
 
The first summer away; and Joanna meagrely maintained herself by the shop, which now consisted of little more than a window and a counter.  Emily was, in truth, her only large customer; and Mrs. Lester’s readiness to buy anything and everything without questioning the quality had a sting of bitterness in it, for it was the uncritical attitude of a patron, and almost of a .  The long winter moved on; the face of the bureau had been turned to the wall to protect the chalked words of farewell, for Joanna could never bring herself to rub them out; and she often glanced at them with wet eyes.  Emily’s handsome boys came home for the Christmas holidays; the University was talked of for them; and still Joanna as it were with held breath, like a person submerged.  Only one summer more, and the ‘spell’ would end.  Towards the close of the time Emily called on her quondam friend.  She had heard that Joanna began to feel anxious; she had received no letter from husband or sons for some months.  Emily’s silks when, in response to Joanna’s almost dumb invitation, she squeezed through the opening of the counter and into the parlour behind the shop.
 
‘You are all success, and I am all the other way!’ said Joanna.
 
‘But why do you think so?’ said Emily.  ‘They are to bring back a fortune, I hear.’
 
‘Ah! will they come?  The doubt is more than a woman can bear.  All three in one ship—think of that!  And I have not heard of them for months!’
 
‘But the time is not up.  You should not meet misfortune half-way.’
 
‘Nothing will repay me for the grief of their absence!’
 
‘Then why did you let them go?  You were doing fairly well.’
 
‘I made them go!’ she said, turning upon Emily.  ‘And I’ll tell you why!  I could not bear that we should be only on, and you so rich and thriving!  Now I have told you, and you may hate me if you will!’
 
‘I shall never hate you, Joanna.’
 
And she proved the truth of her words afterwards.  The end of autumn came, and the brig should have been in port; but nothing like the Joanna appeared in the channel between the sands.  It was now really time to be uneasy.  Joanna Jolliffe sat by the fire, and every of wind caused her a cold thrill.  She had always feared and the sea; to her it was a , restless, slimy creature, glorying in the griefs of women.  ‘Still,’ she said, ‘they must come!’
 
She recalled to her mind that Shadrach had said before starting that if they returned safe and sound, with success crowning their enterprise, he would go as he had gone after his , and kneel with his sons in the church, and offer sincere thanks for their deliverance.  She went to church regularly morning and afternoon, and sat in the most forward pew, nearest the chancel-step.  Her eyes were mostly on that step, where Shadrach had knelt in the bloom of his young manhood: she knew to an inch the spot which his knees had pressed twenty winters before; his outline as he had knelt, his hat on the step beside him.  God was good.  Surely her husband must kneel there again: a son on each side as he had said; George just here, Jim just there.  By long watching the spot as she wo............