Eighteen months of wandering had made him sick of the casual; of the
steamer acquaintances formed at one port and dropped at the next; of
the unfamiliar sights and incomprehensible languages and the horde of
alien yellow faces. He was weary unto death of the freedom of the high
seas, and longed fervently for a strong anchor, and a quiet harbor.
When Cropsie Decker's explosive epistle had arrived telling him of his
indictment, of Margery's broken engagement, of Lee Dillingham's
treachery, his first thought was not of his wrongs, but of the fact
that they would necessitate his going home.
He did not stop to realize that going home meant but one thing to him.
He even tried to persuade himself that seeing Miss Lady in the role of
a happy, complaisant wife would cure him of his insatiable longing for
her. From the time he heard of her marriage he had striven desperately
to put her out of his mind, using every means but one to accomplish
his purpose. Through all his resentment and bitterness of heart, he
had never returned to his old life. Those promises made to her in the
full ardor of his boyish passion, he had kept with the hopeless
loyalty that one keeps the garments of the dead.
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