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Uniacke's reverie over the letter was interrupted by the appearance of the painter. As he came into the room, the clergyman rather awkwardly thrust the doctor's letter into his pocket and turned to his guest. "In already, Sir Graham?" he said, with a strained attempt at ease of manner. "Ah! work tires you. Indeed you should take a long holiday." He spoke, thinking of the doctor's words.
I found it out found it out even before I knew you. It was the strangest thing, and yet quite natural." And then he explained to her that, after the disgraceful circumstance occurred which caused Mr. Uniacke's rustication, he had fled, from justice it might be, or, in any case, from the dread of it, leaving all his papers open, and his rooms at the mercy of all comers.
One would say the time had come for it to give up its dead and it was passionately fighting against the immutable decree. Is Jack somewhere out there?" He turned and fixed his eyes upon Uniacke's face. Uniacke's eyes fell. "Is he?" repeated Sir Graham. "How can I tell?" exclaimed Uniacke, almost with a sudden anger. "Let us go back." Towards evening the storm suddenly abated.
Only when at last Sir Graham paused, did he move away slowly down the stairs with his loose-limbed, shuffling gait, which expressed so plainly the illness of his mind. In the rectory parlour, a few minutes later, Uniacke and Sir Graham discussed this apparently trifling incident. A feeling of unreasonable alarm besieged Uniacke's soul, but he strove to fight against and to expel it.
He set his lips, and his face twitched with nervous agitation as he stole a furtive glance at the clergyman, whose soft hat was pulled down low over his eyes as if to conceal their expression. The two men walked forward slowly into the churchyard. Uniacke's heart was beating with violence and his mind was full of acute anticipation.
Sir Graham and Uniacke heard his heavy tread descending until his breath was warm on their faces. "Where are ye, lads?" he cried out. "Where are ye? Can't ye throw a word of welcome to a mate?" He laid his hands heavily on Uniacke's shoulders in the dark, and felt him over with an uncertain touch. "Is it Jack?" he said. "Why, what 'a ye got on, lad? Is it Jack, I say?"
The last inscription that stood clear to Peter Uniacke's eyes in the dying light ran thus: "Here lies the body of Jack Pringle, cast up by the sea on December 4th, 1896. He was boy on the schooner 'Flying Fish. His age seventeen. 'Lead kindly Light."
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