Rugged Water by Joseph C. Lincoln

Seleucus returned late that evening. Myrick brought him down as far as his--the hermit's--hut on the beach, and he had walked the rest of the way. The members of the crew were already in bed when he entered the station. Calvin was in his room and asleep. Mrs. Gammon, for the first time, was not sitting in that room--nor, as she had since his convalescence, in the mess room, awaiting a possible call from him. Her attendance was no longer really necessary and, even if it had been, he would have been obliged to do without it that night. Jemima, after her husband's hurried departure, went straight to her brother's shanty, and there she stayed. The men, after watching the Wild Duck sail away, found the lady gone when they came up to the station. They were loaded with curiosity and dying to ask questions, but she was not there to hear or answer them. They talked about her, however. Her husband's amazing performance, and his final order, the shouted suggestion that she might journey to a distant and tropical port, were topics which prevented that evening from dragging. The exclamations of delight and the roars of laughter must have been heard at the Jarvis dwelling, but, if they were, the occupant of that dwelling made no sign. Philander was away, down at the weir shanty, but a lamp burned in his sister's room, and was still burning when the Setuckit crew went aloft to turn in.

"She's settin' up for him," announced Phinney, peering out at the light. "She's there waitin' for him. Oh, my! oh, my! And when he does come home--Whew!"