his face. It was half-past five. He went very quietly into the house to the kitchen and washed and shaved there, as he often did when he did not wish to disturb Valerie by making sounds in the bathroom. Lee came in in his pajamas to know if he wanted anything, and Dane had him get the remains of a cold chicken for him, and told him to tell Valerie that he wanted to take her out on the river that afternoon. After he had changed his clothes and drunk a glass of wine, he went out and along to the place where he had left the launch the night before.
As he went down the river to Dargaville he thought it funny thab the mere resolving to do a thing he had long shelved should give him such a feeling of strength. He remembered the mood of exaltation he had had up at Hokianga for days after he had decided not to shoot himself. Was it that when one had accepted Fate the relentless goddess gave one some potent stimulant to enable one to live calmly by her stern decrees?
As it was very early he went some distance beyond the town. Nothing was stirring there except men on the decks of a timber barque at the railway wharf. He was soothed by his aloneness in the new day. There had been a time in his life when eleven o’clock at night began the thrilling hours, but now, of all the twenty-four, he liked best the dawn.
But the dawns were tragic these days, he remembered, and he began to wonder how many men in Europe would be out of the world by night, never to see another day.
He turned back, and walked into Mac’s pub as the first lot of breakfasters were finishing their second cup of coffee. He drank his with the big Irishman who asked him no questions, nor cast at him enquiring looks, though Mac did wonder what mood had brought him there so
