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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6192.txt b/6192.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..50e84ff --- /dev/null +++ b/6192.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5182 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook Mrs. Falchion, by Gilbert Parker, v1 +#20 in our series by Gilbert Parker + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: Mrs. Falchion, Volume 1. + +Author: Gilbert Parker + + +Release Date: July, 2004 [Etext #6192] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on September 6, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. FALCHION, BY PARKER, V1 *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] +Extensive proofreading done by Andrew Sly + + + + + +MRS. FALCHION + +By Gilbert Parker + + + +INTRODUCTION + +This novel was written in the days of the three-decker, and it went out +to sea as such. Every novel of mine written until 1893 was published in +two or three volumes, and the sale to the libraries was greater than the +sale to the general public. This book was begun in 1892 at the time when +the Pierre stories were being written, and it was finished in the summer +of 1893. It did not appear serially; indeed, I made no attempt at serial +publication. I had a feeling that as it was to be my first novel, it +should be judged as a whole and taken at a gasp, as it were. I believe +that the reader of Messrs. Methuen & Company was not disposed to publish +the book, but Mr. Methuen himself (or Mr. Stedman as he was then called) +was impressed by it and gave it his friendly confidence. He was certain +that it would arrest the attention of the critics and of the public, +whether it became popular or not. I have not a set of those original +three volumes. I wish I had, because they won for me an almost unhoped- +for pleasure. The 'Daily Chronicle' gave the volumes over a column of +review, and headed the notice, "A Coming Novelist." The 'Athenaeum' said +that 'Mrs. Falchion' was a splendid study of character; 'The Pall Mall +Gazette' said that the writing was as good as anything that had been done +in our time, while at the same time it took rather a dark view of my +future as a novelist, because it said I had not probed deep enough into +the wounds of character which I had inflicted. The article was written +by Mr. George W. Stevens, and he was right in saying that I had not +probed deep enough. Few very young men--and I was very young then--do +probe very deeply. At the appearance of 'When Valmond Came to Pontiac', +however, Mr. Stevens came to the conclusion that my future was assured. + +I mention these things because they were burnt into my mind at the time. +'Mrs. Falchion' was my first real novel, as I have said, though it had +been preceded by a short novel called 'The Chief Factor', since rescued +from publication and never published in book form in England. I realised +when I had written 'Mrs. Falchion' that I had not found my metier, and I +was fearful of complete failure. I had come but a few years before from +the South Seas; I was full of what I had seen and felt; I was eager to +write of it all, and I did write of it; but the thing which was deeper +still in me was the life which 'Pierre and His People', 'The Seats of the +Mighty', 'The Trail of the Sword', 'The Lane That Had no Turning', and +'The Right of Way' portrayed. That life was destined to give me an +assured place and public, while 'Mrs. Falchion', and the South Sea +stories published in various journals before the time of its production, +and indeed anterior to the writing of the Pierre series, only assured me +attention. + +Happily for the book, which has faults of construction, superficialities +as to incident, and with some crudity of plot, it was, in the main, a +study of character. There was focus, there was illumination in the book, +to what degree I will not try to say; and the attempt to fasten the mind +of the reader upon the central figure, and to present that central figure +in many aspects, safeguarded the narrative from the charge of being a +mere novel of adventure, or, as one writer called it, "an impudent +melodrama, which has its own fascinations." + +Reading Mrs. Falchion again after all these years, I seem to realise in +it an attempt to combine the objective and subjective methods of +treatment--to combine analysis of character and motive with arresting +episode. It is a difficult thing to do, as I have found. It was not +done on my part wholly by design, but rather by instinct, and I imagine +that this tendency has run through all my works. It represents the +elements of romanticism and of realism in one, and that kind of +representation has its dangers, to say nothing of its difficulties. +It sometimes alienates the reader, who by instinct and preference is a +realist, and it troubles the reader who wants to read for a story alone, +who cares for what a character does, and not for what a character is or +says, except in so far as it emphasises what it does. One has to work, +however, in one's own way, after one's own idiosyncrasies, and here is +the book that represents one of my own idiosyncrasies in its most +primitive form. + + + +CONTENTS: + +BOOK I + +BELOW THE SUN LINE + +I. THE GATES OF THE SEA + +II. "MOTLEY IS YOUR ONLY WEAR" + +III. A TALE OF NO MAN'S SEA + +IV. THE TRAIL OF THE ISHMAELITE + +V. ACCUSING FACES + +VI. MUMMERS ALL + +VII. THE WHEEL COMES FULL CIRCLE + +VIII. A BRIDGE OF PERIL + +IX. "THE PROGRESS OF THE SUNS" + +X. BETWEEN DAY AND DARK + + + + +BOOK II + +THE SLOPE OF THE PACIFIC + +XI. AMONG THE HILLS OF GOD + +XII. THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME + +XIII. THE SONG OF THE SAW + +XIV. THE PATH OF THE EAGLE + +XV. IN THE TROUGH OF THE WINDS + +XVI. A DUEL IN ARCADY + +XVII. RIDING THE REEFS + +XVIII. THE STRINGS OF DESTINY + +XIX. THE SENTENCE + +XX. AFTER THE STORM + +XXI. IN PORT + + + + +BOOK I + +BELOW THE SUN LINE + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE GATES OF THE SEA + +The part I played in Mrs. Falchion's career was not very noble, but I +shall set it forth plainly here, else I could not have the boldness to +write of her faults or those of others. Of my own history little need be +said in preface. Soon after graduating with honours as a physician, I +was offered a professional post in a college of medicine in Canada. It +was difficult to establish a practice in medicine without some capital, +else I had remained in London; and, being in need of instant means, I +gladly accepted the offer. But six months were to intervene before the +beginning of my duties--how to fill that time profitably was the +question. I longed to travel, having scarcely been out of England during +my life. Some one suggested the position of surgeon on one of the great +steamers running between England and Australia. The idea of a long sea- +voyage was seductive, for I had been suffering from over-study, though +the position itself was not very distinguished. But in those days I +cared more for pleasing myself than for what might become a newly-made +professor, and I was prepared to say with a renowned Irish dean: "Dignity +and I might be married, for all the relations we are." + +I secured the position with humiliating ease and humiliating smallness +of pay. The steamer's name was the 'Fulvia'. It was one of the largest +belonging to the Occidental Company. It carried no emigrants and had a +passenger list of fashionable folk. On the voyage out to Australia the +weather was pleasant, save in the Bay of Biscay; there was no sickness +on board, and there were many opportunities for social gaiety, the +cultivation of pleasant acquaintances, and the encouragement of that +brisk idleness which aids to health. This was really the first holiday +in my life, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Nothing of unusual interest +occurred on the outward voyage; for one thing, because there were no +unusual people among the passengers; for another, because the vessel +behaved admirably. The same cannot be said of the return voyage: and +with it my story really begins. Misfortune followed us out of Sydney +harbour. We broke a crank-shaft between there and Port Phillip, +Melbourne; a fire in the hold occurred at Adelaide; and at Albany we +buried a passenger who had died of consumption one day out from King +George's Sound. At Colombo, also, we had a misfortune, but it was of a +peculiar kind, and did not obtrude itself at once; it was found in an +addition to our passenger list. I had spent a day in exploring Colombo-- +visiting Arabi Pasha, inspecting Hindu temples, watching the jugglers and +snake-charmers, evading guides and the sellers of brummagem jewellery, +and idling in the Cinnamon Gardens. I returned to the ship tired out. +After I had done some official duties, I sauntered to the gangway, and, +leaning against the bulwarks, idly watched the passengers come on board +from the tender. Two of these made an impression on me. One was a +handsome and fashionably-dressed woman, who was followed by a maid or +companion (as I fancied), carrying parcels; the other, a shabbily-dressed +man, who was the last to come up from the tender. The woman was going +down the companion-way when he stepped on deck with a single bag in his +hand, and I noticed that he watched her with a strange look in his eyes. +He stood still as he gazed, and remained so for a moment after she had +gone; then he seemed to recover himself, and started, as I thought, +almost guiltily, when he saw that my attention was attracted. He +nervously shifted his bag from one hand to the other, and looked round +as though not certain of where he should go. A steward came to him +officiously, and patronisingly too,--which is the bearing of servants to +shabbily-dressed people,--but he shook his head, caught his bag smartly +away from the steward's fingers, and moved towards the after part of the +ship, reserved for intermediate passengers. As he went he hesitated, +came to the side of the vessel, looked down at the tender for a moment, +cast his eyes to where the anchor was being weighed, made as if he would +go back to the tender, then, seeing that the ladder was now drawn up, +sighed, and passed on to the second-class companion-way, through which he +disappeared. + +I stood commenting idly to myself upon this incident, which, slight +though it was, appeared to have significance of a kind, when Hungerford, +the fifth officer, caught me slyly by the arm and said, "Lucky fellow! +Nothing to do but watch the world go by. I wish I had you in the North +Atlantic on a whaler, or in the No Man's Sea on a pearl-smack for a +matter of thirty days." + +"What would come of that, Hungerford?" said I. + +"An exchange of matter for mind, Marmion; muscle for meditation, physics +for philosophy." + +"You do me too much honour; at present I've neither mind, meditation, +nor philosophy; I am simply vegetating." + +"Which proves you to be demoralised. I never saw a surgeon on a ship +who wasn't. They began with mind--more or less--they ate the fruits of +indolence, got precious near being sinful as well as indolent, and ended +with cheap cynicism, with the old 'quid refert'--the thing Hamlet +plagiarised in his, 'But it is no matter.'" + +"Isn't this an unusual occupation for you, Hungerford--this Swift-like +criticism?" + +"Swift-like, is it? You see, I've practised on many of your race, +Marmion, and I have it pat now. You are all of two classes--those who +sicken in soul and leave after one trip, and those who make another trip +and are lost." + +"Lost? How?" + +Hungerford pressed his fingers hard on my breastbone, looked at me +enigmatically from under his well-hung brows, and replied: "Brains put +out to seed, morals put out to vegetate--that's 'lost.'" + +"What about fifth officers?" + +"Fifth officers work like navvies, and haven't time for foolishness. +They've got to walk the bridge, and practise the boats, and be +responsible for luggage--and here I am talking to you like an infallible +undergraduate, while the lascars are in endless confusion with a half- +dozen pieces of baggage, and the first officer foams because I'm not +there to set them right. I leave you to your dreams. Good-bye." + +Hungerford was younger than myself, but he knew the world, and I was +flattered by these uncommon remarks, because he talked to no one else +on the ship in the same way. He never sought to make friends, had a +thorough contempt for social trifling, and shrugged his shoulders at the +"swagger" of some of the other officers. I think he longed for a +different kind of sea-life, so accustomed had he been to adventurous and +hardy ways. He had entered the Occidental service because he had fallen +in love with a pretty girl, and thought it his duty to become a +"regular," and thus have the chance of seeing her every three months in +London. He had conceived a liking for me, reciprocated on my part; the +more so, because I knew that behind his blunt exterior there was a warm +and manly heart. When he left me I went to my cabin and prepared for +dinner, laughing as I did so at his keen, uncompromising criticism, which +I knew was correct enough; for of all official posts that of a ship- +surgeon is least calculated to make a man take a pride in existence. +At its best, it is assisting in the movement of a panorama; at its worst, +worse than a vegetation. Hungerford's solicitude for myself, however, +was misplaced, because this one voyage would end my career as ship- +surgeon, and, besides, I had not vegetated, but had been interested in +everything that had occurred, humdrum as it was. With these thoughts, +I looked out of the port-hole, to see the shores of Colombo, Galle Face, +and Mount Lavinia fading in the distance, and heard seven bells--the time +for dinner. When I took my seat at the table of which I was the head, my +steward handed to me a slip of paper, saying that the chief steward had +given a new passenger, a lady, the seat at my right hand, which had been +vacated at Colombo. The name on the paper was "Mrs. Falchion." The seat +was still empty, and I wondered if this was the beautiful passenger who +had attracted me and interested the Intermediate Passenger. I was +selfish enough to wish so: and it was so. + +We had finished the soup before she entered. The chief steward, with +that anxious civility which beauty can inspire in even so great a +personage, conducted her to her seat beside me. I confess that though I +was at once absorbed in this occurrence, I noticed also that some of the +ladies present smiled significantly when they saw at whose table Mrs. +Falchion was placed, and looked not a little ironically at the purser, +who, as it was known, always tried to get for his table the newest +addition to the passenger list--when it was a pretty woman. I believe +that one or two rude people chaffed the chief steward about "favouring +the doctor"; but he had a habit of saying uncomfortable things in a +deferential way, and they did not pursue the subject. Then they +commiserated the purser, who was an unpleasant little Jew of an envious +turn of mind; and he, as I was told, likened me to Sir John Falstaff. I +was sensitive in those days, and this annoyed me, particularly that I had +had nothing to do with placing Mrs. Falchion at my table. We are always +most sensitive when guilty concerning the spirit and not the letter. + +One who has lived the cosmopolitan life of London should be quick at +detecting nationalities, but I found it difficult, even after I heard her +speak, to guess at Mrs. Falchion's native land. There were good reasons +for this, as may be duly seen. Her appearance in the saloon caused an +instant buzz of admiration and interest, of which she seemed oblivious. +If it was acting, it was good acting; if it was lack of self- +consciousness, it was remarkable. As I soon came to know, it was the +latter--which, in such a woman, increased the remarkableness. I was +inclined at first to venture the opinion that she was an actress; but I +discovered that she possessed the attracting power of an actress without +the calculated manner of one; her very lack of self-consciousness was +proof of this emancipation. + +When she sat down, I immediately welcomed her by name to my table. +The only surprise she showed at my knowledge of her name and my self- +introduction was to lift her head slightly and look at me, as if +wondering whether I was likely to be an inquisitive and troublesome host; +and also, as I thought, to measure me according to her measure. It was a +quick look, and the interest she showed was of a passive kind. She asked +me as she might an old acquaintance--or a waiter--if the soup was good, +and what the fish was like; decided on my recommendation to wait for the +entrees; requested her next neighbour to pass the olives; in an +impersonal way began to talk about the disadvantages of life at sea; +regretted that all ship food tasted alike; wondered if the cook knew how +to make a Russian salad; and added that the menu was a national +compromise. + +Now that she was close to me, I could see that her beauty was real and +notable. Her features were regular, her eyes of a greyish violet, her +chin strong, yet not too strong--the chin of a singer; her hands had that +charming quiet certainty of movement possessed by so few; and her colour +was of the most delightful health. In this delightful health, in her +bountiful yet perfect physical eloquence, her attractiveness, as it +seemed to me, chiefly lay. For no one would ever have guessed her to +possess an emotional temperament. All that was outer was fascinating, +all that was inner suggested coldness. After experience assured me that +all who came to know her shared this estimate, even in those days when +every man on the ship was willing to be her slave. She had a compelling +atmosphere, a possessive presence; and yet her mind at this time was +unemotional--like Octavia, the wife of Mark Antony, "of a cold +conversation." She was striking and unusual in appearance, and yet well +within convention and "good form." Her dress was simply and modestly +worn, and had little touches of grace and taste which, I understand, many +ladies on board sought to imitate, when they recovered from the first +feeling of envy. + +She was an example of splendid life. I cared to look at her as one would +dwell on the sleek beauty of a deer--as, indeed, I have many a time since +then, in India, watched a tigress asleep on her chain, claws hidden, wild +life latent but slumbering. I could have staked my life that Mrs. +Falchion was insensible to love or passion, and unimpeachable in the +broad scheme of right and wrong; imperious in requiring homage, incapable +of giving it. I noticed when she laughed, as she did once at table, that +her teeth were very white and small and square; and, like a schoolgirl, +she had a habit of clicking them together very lightly, but not +conspicuously, as if trying their quality. This suggested, however, +something a little cruel. Her appetite was very good. She was coolly +anxious about the amusements; she asked me if I could get her a list of +the passengers, said that she was never sea-sick, and took a languid +interest in the ladies present. Her glance at the men was keen at first, +then neutral. + +Once again, during the meal, she slowly turned and flashed an inquiring +glance at me. I caught her eyes. She did not show the least +embarrassment, and asked me if the band insisted on playing every day. +Before she left the saloon, one could see that many present were talking +about her. Even the grim old captain followed her with his eyes as she +went. When she rose, I asked her if she was going on deck. I did it +casually, as though it was her usual custom to appear there after dinner. +In like fashion she replied that her maid had some unpacking to do, she +had some things to superintend, and, when this was done, she intended to +spend a time on deck. Then, with a peculiar smile, she passed out. + + [Note by Dr. Marmion appended to his MSS.:--"Many of the + conversations and monologues in this history, not heard by myself + when they occurred, were told to me afterwards, or got from the + diaries and notes of the persons concerned. Only a few are purely + imaginary."] + + + + +CHAPTER II + +"MOTLEY IS YOUR ONLY WEAR" + +I went to my cabin, took a book, sat down, and began to smoke. My +thoughts drifted from the book, and then occurred a strange, incongruous +thing. It was a remembered incident. It came like a vision as I was +lighting a fresh cigar: + +A boy and a girl in a village chemist's shop; he with a boy's love for +her, she responding in terms, but not in fact. He passed near her +carrying a measure of sulphuric acid. She put out her hand suddenly and +playfully, as though to bar his way. His foot slipped on the oily floor, +and the acid spilled on his hands and the skirt of her dress. He turned +instantly and plunged his hands into a measure of alcohol standing near +before the acid had more than slightly scalded them. She glanced at his +startled face; hers was without emotion. She looked down, and said +petulantly: "You have spoiled my dress; I cannot go into the street." + +The boy's clothes were burnt also. He was poor, and to replace them must +be a trial to him; her father owned the shop, and was well-to-do. Still, +he grieved most that she should be annoyed, though he saw her injustice. +But she turned away and left him. + +Another scene then crossed the disc of smoke: + +The boy and girl, now man and woman, standing alone in the chemist's +shop. He had come out of the big working world, after travel in many +countries. His fame had come with him. She was to be married the next +day to a seller of purple and fine linen. He was smiling a good-bye, and +there was nothing of the old past in the smile. The flame now was in her +eyes, and she put out both her hands to stop him as he turned to go; +but his face was passionless. "You have spoiled my heart," she said; +"I cannot go into the world so." + +"It is too late; the measures are empty," he replied. + +"I love you to-day, I will loathe you to-morrow," was the answer. + +But he turned and left her, and she blindly stretched out her hands and +followed him into the darkness, weeping. + +Was it the scent of the chemicals in my cabin, coupled with some +subterranean association of things, which brought these scenes vividly +before me at this moment? What had they to do with Mrs. Falchion? + +A time came when the occurrence appeared to me in the light of +prescience, but that was when I began to understand that all ideas, all +reason and philosophy, are the result of outer impression. The primal +language of our minds is in the concrete. Afterwards it becomes the +cypher, and even at its highest it is expressed by angles, lines, and +geometrical forms--substances and allusive shapes. But now, as the scene +shifted by, I had involuntarily thrust forward my hands as did the girl +when she passed out into the night, and, in doing so, touched the curtain +of my cabin door swinging in towards me. I recovered myself, and a man +timidly stepped inside, knocking as he did so. It was the Intermediate +Passenger. His face was pale; he looked ill. + +Poor as his dress was, I saw that he had known the influences and +practised the graces of good society, though his manner was hesitating +and anxious now. I knew at a glance that he was suffering from both +physical pain and mental worry. Without a word, I took his wrist and +felt his pulse, and he said: "I thought I might venture to come--" + +I motioned him not to speak. I counted the irregular pulse-beats, +then listened to the action of his heart, with my ear to his breast. +There lay his physical trouble. I poured out a dose of digitalis, and, +handing it to him, asked him to sit down. As he sat and drank the +medicine, I rapidly studied him. The chin was firm, and the eyes had a +dogged, persistent look that, when turned on you, saw not you, but +something beyond you. The head was thrown slightly forward, the eyes +looking up at an angle. This last action was habitual with him. It gave +him a peculiar earnestness. As I noted these peculiarities, my mind was +also with his case; I saw that his life was threatened. Perhaps he +guessed what was going on in me, for he said in a low, cultured voice: +"The wheels will stop too long some time, and there will be no rebound;" +--referring to the irregular action of his heart. + +"Perhaps that is true," I said; "yet it depends a good deal upon yourself +when it will be. Men can die if they wish without committing suicide. +Look at the Maori, the Tongan, the Malay. They can also prolong life +(not indefinitely, but in a case like yours considerably), if they +choose. You can lengthen your days if you do not brood on fatal things +--fatal to you; if you do not worry yourself into the grave." + +I knew that something of this was platitude, and that counsel to such a +man must be of a more possible cast, if it is to be followed. I was +aware also that, in nine cases out of ten, worry is not a voluntary or +constitutional thing, but springs from some extraneous cause. + +He smiled faintly, raised his head a little higher, and said: +"Yes, that's just it, I suppose; but then we do not order our own +constitutions; and I believe, Doctor, that you must kill a nerve before +it ceases to hurt. One doesn't choose to worry, I think, any more than +one chooses to lay bare a nerve." And then his eyes dropped, as if he +thought he had already said too much. + +Again I studied him, repeating my definitions in my mind. He was not a +drunkard; he might have had no vice, so free was his face from any sign +of dissipation or indulgence; but there was suffering, possibly the marks +of some endured shame. The suffering and shadows showed the more because +his features were refined enough for a woman. And altogether it struck +me that he was possessed by some one idea, which gave his looks a kind of +sorrowful eloquence, such as one sees on occasion in the face of a great +actor like Salvini, on the forehead of a devout Buddhist, or in the eyes +of a Jesuit missionary who martyrs himself in the wilds. + +I felt at once for the man a sympathy, a brotherliness, the causes of +which I should be at a loss to trace. Most people have this experience +at one time or another in their lives. It is not a matter of sex; it may +be between an old man and a little child, a great man and a labourer, a +schoolgirl and an old native woman. There is in such companionships less +self-interest than in any other. As I have said, I thought that this man +had a trouble, and I wished to know it; not from curiosity,--though my +mind had a selfish, inquiring strain,--but because I hoped I might be +able to help him in some way. I put my hand on his shoulder, and +replied: "You will never be better unless you get rid of your worry." + +He drew in a sharp breath, and said: "I know that. I am afraid I shall +never be better." + +There was a silence in which we looked at each other steadily, and then +he added, with an intense but quiet misery: "Never--never!" + +At that he moved his hand across his forehead wearily, rose, and turned +toward the door. He swayed as he did so, and would have fallen, but I +caught him as he lost consciousness, and laid him on the cabin sofa. I +chafed his hands, unloosed his collar, and opened the bosom of his shirt. +As the linen dropped away from his throat, a small portrait on ivory was +exposed on his breast. I did not look closely at it then, but it struck +me that the woman's head in the portrait was familiar, though the +artistic work was not recent, and the fashion of the hair was of years +before. When his eyes opened, and he felt his neck bare, he hurriedly +put up his hand and drew the collar close, and at the same time sent a +startled and inquiring look at me. After a few moments I helped him to +his feet, and, thanking me more with a look than with words, he turned +towards the door again. + +"Wait," I said, "until I give you some medicine, and then you shall take +my arm to your cabin." With a motion of the hand, signifying the +uselessness of remedies, he sat down again. As I handed him the phial, I +continued: "I know that it is none of my business, but you are suffering. +To help your body, your mind should be helped also. Can't you tell me +your trouble? Perhaps I should be able to serve you. I would if I +could." + +It may be that I spoke with a little feeling and an apparent honesty; +for his eyes searched mine in a kind of earnest bewilderment, as if this +could not be true--as if, indeed, life had gone so hard with him that he +had forgotten the way of kindness. Then he stretched out his hand and +said brokenly: "I am grateful, believe me. I cannot tell you just now, +but I will soon, perhaps." His hand was upon the curtain of the door, +when my steward's voice was heard outside, calling my name. The man +himself entered immediately, and said that Mrs. Falchion sent her +compliments, and would I come at once to see her companion, Miss Caron, +who had injured herself. + +The Intermediate Passenger turned towards me a strange look; his lips +opened as if about to speak, but he said nothing. At the instant there +came to my mind whom the picture on his breast resembled: it was Mrs. +Falchion. + +I think he saw this new intelligence in my face, and a meaning smile took +the place of words, as he slowly left the cabin, mutely refusing +assistance. + +I went to Mrs. Falchion's cabin, and met her outside the door. She +looked displeased. "Justine has hurt herself," she said. "Please attend +to her; I am going on deck." + +The unfeeling nature of this remark held me to the spot for a moment; +then I entered the cabin. Justine Caron, a delicate but warm-faced girl +of little more than twenty, was sitting on the cabin sofa, her head +supported against the wall, and her hand wound in a handkerchief soaked +in blood. Her dress and the floor were also stained. I undid the +handkerchief and found an ugly wound in the palm of the hand. I called +the steward, and sent him to my dispensary for some necessaries; then I +asked her how it happened. At the moment I saw the cause--a broken +bottle lying on the floor. "The ship rolled," she said. "The bottle +fell from the shelf upon the marble washstand, and, breaking, from there +to the floor. Madame caught at my arm to save herself from falling; but +I slipped, and was cut on the bottle--so." + +As she ended there was a knock, but the curtain was not drawn, and Mrs. +Falchion's voice was heard. "My dress is stained, Justine." + +The half-fainting girl weakly replied: "I am very sorry, madame, indeed." + +To this Mrs. Falchion rejoined: "When you have been attended to, you may +go to bed, Justine. I shall not want you again to-night. But I shall +change my dress. It is so unpleasant; I hate blood. I hope you will be +well in the morning." + +To this Justine replied: "Ah, madame, I am sorry. I could not help it; +but I shall be quite well in the morning, I am sure." Then she added +quietly to me: "The poor madame! She will not see suffering. She hates +pain. Sickness troubles her. Shall I be able to use my hand very soon, +monsieur?" + +There was a wistful look in her eyes, and guessing why it was there, I +said: "Yes, soon, I hope--in a few days, no doubt." + +Her face lighted up, and she said: "Madame likes about her people who are +happy and well." Then, as if she might have said too much, she hurriedly +added: "But she is very kind;" and, stooping down quickly, her face +whitening with the effort, she caught up the broken glass and threw it +through the port-hole into the sea. + +A half-hour later I went on deck, and found Mrs. Falchion comfortably +seated in her deck-chair. I brought a stool over, and sat down beside +her. To this hour the quickness with which I got upon friendly terms +with her astonishes me. + +"Justine is better?" she said, and her hand made a slight motion of +disgust. + +"Yes. She was not dangerously hurt, of course." + +"Let us change the subject, please. They are going to have a fancy-dress +ball on board, I believe, before we get to Aden. How tiresome! Isn't it +a little affectation on the part of the stage-struck committee? Isn't +it--inconsequent?" + +"That depends," I said vaguely, inviting a question. She idled with a +book in her lap. + +"On what?" + +"On those who go, what costumes are worn, and how much beauty and art +appear." + +"But the trouble! Does it pay? What return does one get?" + +"If all admire, half are envious, some are jealous, and one is devoted-- +isn't that enough?" I think I was a fool that night. + +"You seem to understand women," she said, with a puzzling and not quite +satisfactory smile. "Yes, all that is something." + +Though I was looking at the sea rather than at her, I saw again that +inquiring look in her eyes--such a measuring look as a recruiting +sergeant might give a victim of the Queen's shilling. + +After a moment's pause she continued, I thought, abstractedly: "As what +should you go?" + +I answered lightly and without premeditation, "As Caius Cassius. Why +should you not appear as Portia?" + +She lifted her eyebrows at me. + +"As Portia?" + +"As Portia, the wife of Brutus," I blundered on, at the same time +receiving her permission, by a nod, to light my cigar. + +"The pious, love-sick wife of Brutus!" This in a disdainful tone, and +the white teeth clicked softly together. + +"Yes, a good disguise," I said banteringly, though I fancy somewhat +tentatively also, and certainly with a touch of rudeness. I was thinking +at that moment of the Intermediate Passenger, and I was curious. + +"And you think of going in the disguise of a gentleman? Caius Cassius +was that, wasn't he?" she retorted in an ironical tone. + +"I suppose he was, though he was punished once for rudeness," I replied +apologetically. + +"Quite so," was the decisive reply. + +I felt that she was perfectly cool, while I was a little confused, and +ashamed too, that I had attempted to be playfully satirical. And so, +wondering what I should say next, I remarked in desperation: "Do you like +the sea?" + +"I am never ill at sea," was her reply. "But I do not really like it; +it is treacherous. The land would satisfy me if--" She paused. + +"Yes, Mrs. Falchion--'if'?" + +"If I did not wish to travel," she vaguely added, looking blandly at me. + +"You have travelled much?" I ventured. + +"A great deal;" and again I saw that scrutiny in her eyes. It occurred +to me at the moment that she might think I possessed some previous +knowledge of her. + +My mind became occupied again with the Intermediate Passenger and the +portrait that he wore at his neck. I almost laughed to think of the +melodramatic turn which my first conversation with this woman might +chance to take. I felt that I was dealing with one who was able to meet +cleverly any advance of mine, but I determined to lead the talk into as +deep waters as possible. + +"I suppose, too, you are a good practical sailor--that is, you understand +seamanship, if you have travelled much?" I do not know why I said that, +for it sounded foolish to me afterwards. + +"Pretty well," she replied. "I can manage a sail; I know the argot, +I could tell the shrouds from the bulwarks, and I've rowed a boat in +a choppy sea." + +"It is not an accomplishment usual to your sex." + +"It was ordinary enough where I spent the early part of my life," was the +idle reply; and she settled herself more comfortably in her chair. + +"Yes? May I ask where that was?" and as I said this, it occurred to me +that she was, perhaps, leading me on, instead of my leading her; to +betray me as to anything I knew about her. + +"In the South Seas," she replied. "My father was a British consul in the +Islands." + +"You have not come from the Islands now, I suppose?" + +"No," she said a little more softly; "it is years since I was in Samoa. +. . . My father is buried there." + +"You must have found it a romantic life in those half-barbaric places?" + +She shifted in her chair. "Romantic!" Her tone conveyed a very slight +uneasiness and vagueness. "I am afraid you must ask some one else about +that sort of thing. I did not see much romance, but I saw plenty that +was half-barbaric." Here she laughed slightly. + +Just then I saw the lights of a vessel far off. "See--a vessel!" I said; +and I watched the lights in silence, but thinking. I saw that she too +was watching idly. + +At length, as if continuing the conversation, I said: "Yes, I suppose +life must be somewhat adventurous and dangerous among savage people like +the Samoans, Tongans, and Fijians?" + +"Indeed, then," she replied decisively, "you are not to suppose anything +of the kind. The danger is not alone for the white people." + +At this I appeared, as I really was, interested, and begged her to +explain what she meant. She thought a moment, and then briefly, but +clearly, sketched the life of those islands, showing how, in spite of +missionary labour selfish and unselfish, the native became the victim of +civilisation, the prey of the white trader and beachcomber, who were +protected by men-of-war with convincing Nordenfeldt and Hotchkiss guns; +how the stalwart force of barbaric existence declined, and with it the +crude sense of justice, the practice of communism at its simplest and +purest, the valour of nationality. These phrases are my own--the +substance, not the fashion, of her speech. + +"You do not, then," I said, "believe wholly in the unselfishness of +missionaries, the fair dealing of traders, the perfect impartiality of +justice, as shown through steel-clad cruisers?" + +"I have seen too much to be quite fair in judgment, I fear, even to men- +of-war's men;" and she paused, listening to a song which came from the +after-part of the ship. The air was very still, and a few of the words +of the droll, plaintive ditty came to us. + +Quartermaster Stone, as he passed us, hummed it, and some voices of the +first-class passengers near joined in the refrain: + + "Sing, hey, for a rover on the sea, + And the old world!" + +Some days later I got all of the song from one of the intermediate +passengers, and the last verse of it I give here: + + "I'm a-sailing, I'm a-sailing on the sea, + To a harbour where the wind is still; + Oh, my dearie, do you wait for me? + Oh, my dearie, do you love me still? + Sing, hey, for a rover on the sea, + And the old world!" + +I noticed that Mrs. Falchion's brow contracted as the song proceeded, +making a deep vertical line between the eyes, and that the fingers of the +hand nearest me closed on the chair-arm firmly. The hand attracted me. +It was long, the fingers were shapely, but not markedly tapering, and +suggested firmness. I remarked afterward, when I chanced to shake hands +with her, that her fingers enclosed one's hand; it was not a mere touch +or pressure, but an unemotional and possessive clasp. I felt sure that +she had heard the song before, else it had not produced even this so +slight effect on her nerves. I said: "It is a quaint song. I suppose +you are familiar with it and all of its kind?" + +"I fancy I have heard it somewhere," she answered in a cold voice. + +I am aware that my next question was not justified by our very short +acquaintance; but this acquaintance had been singular from its beginning, +and it did not seem at that moment as it looks on paper; besides, I had +the Intermediate Passenger in my mind. "Perhaps your husband is a naval +man?" I asked. + +A faint flush passed over her face, and then, looking at me with a +neutral expression and some reserve of manner, she replied: "My husband +was not a naval man." + +She said "was not." That implied his death. + +There was no trouble in her manner; I could detect no sign of excitement. +I turned to look at the lights of the approaching vessel, and there, +leaning against the railing that divided the two decks, was the +Intermediate Passenger. He was looking at us intently. A moment after +he disappeared. Beyond doubt there was some intimate association between +these two. + +My thoughts were, however, distracted by our vessel signalling the other. +Hungerford was passing just then, and I said: "Have you any idea what +vessel it is, Hungerford?" + +"Yes, man-of-war 'Porcupine', bound for Aden, I think." + +Mrs. Falchion at this laughed strangely, as she leaned forward looking, +and then, rising quickly, said: "I prefer to walk." + +"May I accompany you?" I asked. + +She inclined her head, and we joined the promenaders. The band was +playing, and, for a ship-band, playing very well, the ballet music of +Delibes' 'Sylvia'. The musicians had caught that unaccentuated and +sensuous swing of the melody which the soft, tropical atmosphere rendered +still more languorous. With Mrs. Falchion's hand upon my arm, I felt a +sense of capitulation to the music and to her, uncanny in its suddenness. +At this distance of time it seems to me absurd. I had once experienced +something of the same feeling with the hand of a young medical student, +who, skilled in thought-reading, discovered the number of a bank-note +that was in my mind. + +This woman had an attractiveness compelling and delightful, at least in +its earlier application to me. Both professionally and socially I have +been brought into contact with women of beauty and grace, but never one +who, like Mrs. Falchion, being beautiful, seemed so unconscious of the +fact, so indifferent to those about her, so untouched by another's +emotion, so lacking in sensitiveness of heart; and who still drew people +to her. I am speaking now of the earlier portion of our acquaintance; +of her as she was up to this period in her life. + +I was not alone in this opinion of her, for, as time went on, every +presentable man and woman on the boat was introduced to her; and if some +women criticised and some disliked her, all acknowledged her talent and +her imperial attraction. Among the men her name was never spoken but +with reserve and respect, and her afternoon teas were like a little +court. She had no compromising tenderness of manner for man or woman; +she ruled, yet was unapproachable through any avenues of sentiment. She +had a quiet aplomb, which would be called 'sang-froid' in a man. + +"Did you ever see a Spanish-Mexican woman dance?" she asked in one of +the pauses of the music. + +"Never: never any good dancing, save what one gets at a London theatre." + +"That is graceful," she said, "but not dancing. You have heard of music +stirring the blood; of savage races--and others--working themselves up to +ecstatic fury? Maybe you have seen the Dervishes, or the Fijians, or the +Australian aboriginals? No? Well, I have, and I have seen--which is so +much more--those Spanish-Mexican women dance. Did you ever see anything +so thrilling, so splendid, that you felt you must possess it?"--She asked +me that with her hand upon my arm!--"Well, that is it. I have felt that +way towards a horse which has won a great race, and to a woman who has +carried me with her through the fantastic drama of her dance, until she +stood at the climax, head thrown back, face glowing--a statue. It is +grand to be eloquent like that, not in words, but in person." + +In this was the key to her own nature. Body and mind she was free +from ordinary morbidness, unless her dislike of all suffering was morbid. +With her this was a dislike of any shock to the senses. She was selfish +at all points. + +These conclusions were pursued at the expense of speech on my part. At +first she did not appear to regard my silence. She seemed to have +thoughts of her own; but she shook them off with a little firm motion of +the shoulders, and, with the assumption of a demureness of manner and an +airy petulance, said: "Well, amuse me." + +"Amuse you?" was my reply. "Delighted to do so if I can. How?" + +"Talk to me," was the quick response. + +"Would that accomplish the purpose?" This in a tone of mock protest. + +"Please don't be foolish, Dr. Marmion. I dislike having to explain. +Tell me things." + +"About what?" + +"Oh, about yourself--about people you have met, and all that; for I +suppose you have seen a good deal and lived a good deal." + +"About hospital cases?" I said a little maliciously. + +"No, please, no! I abhor everything that is sick and poor and miserable." + +"Well," said I, at idle venture, "if not a hospital, what about a gaol?" + +I felt the hand on my arm twitch slightly, and then her reply came. + +"I said I hated everything that was wretched and wicked. You are either +dense, or purposely irritating." + +"Well, then, a college?" + +"A college? Yes, that sounds better. But I do not wish descriptions +of being 'gated,' or 'sent down,' or 'ploughed,' and that kind of +commonplace. I should prefer, unless your vanity leads you irresistibly +in that direction, something with mature life and amusement; or, at +least, life and incident, and good sport--if you do not dwell on the +horrors of killing." + +On the instant there came to me the remembrance of Professor Valiant's +wife. I think it was not what she wanted; but I had a purpose, and I +began: + +"Every one at St. Luke's admired and respected Professor Valiant's wife, +she was so frank and cordial and prettily downright. In our rooms we all +called her a good chap, and a dashed good chap when her husband happened +to be rustier than usual. He was our professor in science. It was the +general belief that he chose science for his life-work because it gave +unusual opportunities for torture. He was believed to be a devoted +vivisectionist; he certainly had methods of cruelty, masterly in their +ingenuity. He could make a whole class raw with punishment in a few +words; and many a scorching bit of Latin verse was written about his +hooked nose and fishy eye. + +"But his highest talents in this direction were reserved for his wife. +His distorted idea of his own importance made him view her as a chattel, +an inferior being; the more so, I believe, because she brought him little +money when he married her. She was too much the woman to pretend to +kneel to him, and because she would not be his slave, she had a hard time +of it. He began by insisting that she should learn science, that she +might assist him in his experiments. She knew that she had no taste for +it, that it was no part of her wifely duty, and she did what suited her +better--followed the hounds. It was a picture to see her riding across +country. She could take a fence with a sound hunter like a bird. And so +it happened that, after a time, they went their own ways pretty well; he +ignoring her, neglecting her, deprecating her by manner, if not by +speech, and making her life more than uncomfortable. + +"She was always kind to me. I was the youngest chap in the college, and +was known as 'Marmy' by every one; and because I was fonder of science +than most other men in the different years, Valiant was more gracious to +me than the rest, though I did not like him. One day, when I called, +I heard her say to him, not knowing that I was near: 'Whatever you feel, +or however you act towards me in private, I will have respect when others +are present.' + +"It was the custom for the professors to invite each student to luncheon +or dinner once during term-time. Being somewhat of a favourite of both +Professor and Mrs. Valiant however, I lunched with them often. I need +hardly say that I should not have exceeded the regulation once had it not +been for Mrs. Valiant. The last time I went is as clear in my memory as +if it were yesterday. Valiant was more satirical and cold-blooded than +usual. I noticed a kind of shining hardness in his wife's eyes, which +gave me a strange feeling; yet she was talkative and even gay, I thought, +while I more than once clinched my fist under the table, so much did I +want to pummel him; for I was a lover of hers, in a deferential, boyish +way. + +"At last, knowing that she liked the hunt, I asked her if she was going +to the meet on the following Saturday, saying that I intended to follow, +having been offered a horse. With a steely ring to her voice, and a +further brightening of the eyes, she said: 'You are a stout little +sportsman, Marmy. Yes, I am going on Major Karney's big horse, Carbine.' + +"Valiant looked up, half sneering, half doubtful, I thought, and +rejoined: 'Carbine is a valuable horse, and the fences are stiff in the +Garston country.' + +"She smiled gravely, then, with her eyes fixed on her husband, said: +'Carbine is a perfect gentleman. He will do what I ask him. I have +ridden him.' + +"'The devil you have!' he replied. + +"'I am sure,' said I, as I hoped, bravely, and not a little +enthusiastically, 'that Carbine would take any fence you asked him.' + +"'Or not, as the case might be. Thank you, Marmy, for the compliment,' +she said. + +"'A Triton among minnows,' remarked Valiant, not entirely under his +breath; 'horses obey, and students admire, and there is no end to her +greatness.' + +"'There is an end to everything, Edward,' she remarked a shade sadly and +quietly. + +"He turned to me and said: 'Science is a great study, Marmion, but it is +sardonic too; for you shall find that when you reduce even a Triton to +its original elements--' + +"'Oh, please let me finish,' she interrupted softly. 'I know the lecture +so well. It reads this way: "The place of generation must break to give +place to the generated; but the influence spreads out beyond the +fragments, and is greater thus than in the mass--neither matter nor mind +can be destroyed. The earth was molten before it became cold rock and +quiet world." There, you see, Marmy, that I am a fellow-student of +yours.' + +"Valiant's eyes were ugly to watch; for she had quoted from a lecture of +his, delivered to us that week. After an instant he said, with slow +maliciousness: 'Oh, ye gods, render me worthy of this Portia, and teach +her to do as Brutus's Portia did, ad eternum!' + +"She shuddered a little, then said very graciously, and as if he had +meant nothing but kindness: 'Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks.' +I will leave you now to your cigarettes; and because I must go out soon, +and shall not, I fear, see you again this afternoon, good-bye, Marmy, +till Saturday--till Saturday.' And she left us. + +"I was white and trembling with anger. He smiled coolly, and was +careful to choose me one of his best cigars, saying as he handed it: +'Conversation is a science, Marmion. Study it; there is solid +satisfaction in it; it is the only art that brings instant pleasure. +Like the stage, it gets its immediate applause.' + +"Well, Mrs. Valiant did ride Carbine on that Saturday. Such a scene it +was! I see it now--the mottled plump of hounds upon the scent, the +bright sun showing up the scarlet coats of the whips gloriously, the long +stride of the hunters, ears back and quarters down! She rode Carbine, +and the fences WERE stiff--so stiff that I couldn't have taken half of +them. Afterward I was not sorry that I couldn't; for she rode for a fall +that day on Carbine, her own horse, she had bought him of Major Karney a +few days before,--and I heard her last words as she lay beside him, +smiling through the dreadful whiteness of her lips. 'Goodbye, Marmy,' +she whispered. 'Carbine and I go together. It is better so, in the full +cry and a big field. Tell the men at Luke's that I hope they will pass +at the coming exams. . . . I am going up--for my final--Marmy.-- +I wonder--if I'll--pass.' And then the words froze on her lips. + +"It was persecution that did it--diabolical persecution and selfishness. +That was the worst day the college ever knew. At the funeral, when the +provost read, 'For that it hath pleased Thee to deliver this our sister +out of the miseries of this sinful world,' Big Wallington, the wildest +chap among the grads, led off with a gulp in his throat, and we all +followed. And that gold-spectacled sneak stood there, with a lying +white handkerchief at his eyes. + +"I laid myself out to make the college too hot for him. In a week I had +every man in the place with me, and things came to such a pass that all +of us must be sent down, or Valiant resign. He resigned. He found +another professorship; but the thing followed him, and he was obliged to +leave the country." + +When I finished the story, Mrs. Falchion was silent for a time, then, +with a slight air of surprise, and in a quite critical way, she said: +"I should think you would act very well, if you used less emotion. Mrs. +Valiant had a kind of courage, but she was foolish to die. She should +have stayed and fought him--fought him every way, until she was his +master. She could have done it; she was clever, I should think. +Still, if she had to die, it was better to go with a good horse that way. +I think I should prefer to go swiftly, suddenly, but without the horror +of blood and bruises, and that sort of thing. . . . I should like to +meet Professor Valiant. He was hard, but he was able too. . . . But +haven't we had enough of horror? I asked you to amuse me, and you have +merely interested me instead. Oh!--" + +This exclamation, I thought, was caused by the voice of the quartermaster +humming: + + "I'm a-sailing, I'm a-sailing on the sea, + To a harbour where the wind is still"-- + +Almost immediately she said: "I think I will go below." Then, after a +slight pause: "This is a liberal acquaintance for one day, Dr. Marmion; +and, you know, we were not introduced." + +"No, Mrs. Falchion, we were not introduced; but I am in some regards +your host, and I fear we should all be very silent if we waited for +regular introductions here. The acquaintance gives me pleasure, but it +is not nearly so liberal as I hope it may become." + +She did not answer, but smiled at me over her shoulder as she passed down +the staircase, and the next instant I could have bitten my tongue for +playing the cavalier as I had done; for showing, as I think I did, that +she had an influence over me--an influence peculiar to herself, and +difficult to account for when not in her presence. + +I sat down, lit a cigar, and went over in my mind all that had been said +between us; all that had occurred in my cabin after dinner; every minute +since we left Colombo was laid bare to its minutest detail. Lascars +slipped by me in the half-darkness, the voices of two lovers near +alternated with their expressive silences, and from the music saloon +there came the pretty strains of a minuet, played very deftly. Under the +influence of this music my thoughts became less exact; they drifted. My +eyes shifted to the lights of the 'Porcupine' in the distance, and from +them again to the figures passing and repassing me on the deck. The +"All's well" of the look-out seemed to come from an endless distance; the +swish of water against the dividing hull of the 'Fulvia' sounded like a +call to silence from another world; the phosphorescence swimming through +the jarred waters added to the sensation of unreality and dreams. These +dreams grew, till they were broken by a hand placed on my shoulder, and +I saw that one of the passengers, Clovelly, an English novelist, had +dropped out from the promenade to talk with me. He saw my mood, however, +and said quietly: "Give me a light for my cigar, will you? Then, astride +this stool, I'll help you to make inventory of the rest of them. +A pretty study; for, at our best, 'What fools we mortals be!'" + +"'Motley is your only wear,'" was my reply; and for a full half-hour, +which, even for a man, is considerable, we spoke no word, but only nodded +when some one of the promenaders noticed us. There was a bookmaker fresh +from the Melbourne races; an American, Colonel Ryder, whose eloquence had +carried him round the world; a stalwart squatter from Queensland; +a pretty widow, who had left her husband under the sods of Tasmania; +a brace of girls going to join their lovers and be married in England; +a few officers fleeing from India with their livers and their lives; +a family of four lanky lasses travelling "home" to school; a row of +affable ladies, who alternated between envy and gaiety and delight in, +and criticism of, their husbands; a couple of missionaries, preparing +to give us lectures on the infamous gods of the heathen,--gods which, +poor harmless little creatures! might be bought at a few annas a pint at +Aden or Colombo,--and on the Exodus and the Pharaohs--pleasures reserved +for the Red Sea; a commercial traveller, who arranged theatricals, and +cast himself for all the principal parts; a humorous and naive person who +industriously hinted at the opulence of his estates in Ireland; two +stately English ladies of title; a cheerful array of colonial knights and +judges off to Europe for a holiday; and many others, who made little +worlds unto themselves, called cliques by blunt people. + +"To my mind, the most interesting persons on the ship," said Clovelly at +last, "are the bookmaker, Miss Treherne, and the lady with whom you have +just been talking--an exceptional type." + +"An unusual woman, I fancy," was my reply. "But which is Miss Treherne? +I am afraid I am not quite sure." + +He described her and her father, with whom I had talked--a London Q.C., +travelling for his health, a notable man with a taste for science, who +spent his idle hours in reading astronomy and the plays of Euripides. + +"Why not include the father in the list of the most interesting persons?" +I questioned. + +"Because I have met many men like him, but no one quite like his +daughter, or Mrs.--what is her name?" + +"Mrs. Falchion." + +"Or Mrs. Falchion or the bookmaker." + +"What is there so uncommon about Miss Treherne? She had not struck me as +being remarkable." + +"No? Well, of course, she is not striking after the fashion of Mrs. +Falchion. But watch her, study her, and you will find her to be the +perfection of a type--the finest expression of a decorous convention, a +perfect product of social conservatism; unaffected, cheerful, sensitive, +composed, very talented, altogether companionable." + +"Excuse me," I said, laughing, though I was impressed; "that sounds as if +you had been writing about her, and applying to her the novelist's system +of analysis, which makes an imperfect individual a perfect type. Now, +frankly, are you speaking of Miss Treherne, or of some one of whom she is +the outline, as it were?" + +Clovelly turned and looked at me steadily. "When you consider a +patient," he said, "do you arrange a diagnosis of a type or of a person? +--And, by the way, 'type' is a priggish word." + +"I consider the type in connection with the person." + +"Exactly. The person is the thing. That clears up the matter of +business and art. But now, as to Miss Treherne: I want to say that, +having been admitted to her acquaintance and that of her father, I have +thought of them only as friends, and not as 'characters' or 'copy.'" + +"I beg your pardon, Clovelly," said I. "I might have known." + +"Now, to prove how magnanimous I am, I shall introduce you to Miss +Treherne, if you will let me. You've met her father, I suppose?" +he added, and tossed his cigar overboard. + +"Yes, I have talked with him. He is a courteous and able man, I should +think." + +We rose. Presently he continued: "See, Miss Treherne is sitting there +with the Tasmanian widow--what is HER name?" + +"Mrs. Callendar," I replied. "Blackburn, the Queenslander, is joining +them." + +"So much the better," he said. "Come on." + +As we passed the music saloon, we paused for an instant to look through +the port-hole at a pale-faced girl with big eyes and a wonderful bright +red dress, singing "The Angels' Serenade," while an excitable bear-leader +turned her music for her. Near her stood a lanky girl who adored actors +and tenors, and lived in the hope of meeting some of those gentlemen of +the footlights, who plough their way so calmly through the hearts of +maidens fresh from school. + +We drew back to go on towards Miss Treherne, when Hungerford touched me +on the arm, and said: "I want to see you for a little while, Marmion, if +Mr. Clovelly will excuse you." + +I saw by Hungerford's face that he had something of importance to say, +and, linking my arm in his, I went with him to his cabin, which was near +those of the intermediate passengers. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A TALE OF NO MAN'S SEA + +Inside the cabin Hungerford closed the door, gripped me by the arm, and +then handed me a cheroot, with the remark: "My pater gave them to me last +voyage home. Have kept 'em in tea." And then he added, with no +appearance of consecutiveness: "Hang the bally ship, anyhow!" + +I shall not attempt to tone down the crudeness of Hungerford's language. +It contents me to think that the solidity of his character and his worth +will appear even through the crust of free-and-easy idioms, as they will +certainly be seen in his acts;--he was sound at heart and true as steel. + +"What is the matter, Hungerford?" I asked lighting the cheroot. + +"Everything's the matter. Captain, with his nose in the air, and +trusting all round to his officers. First officer, no good--never any +use since they poured the coal on him. Purser, ought to be on a Chinese +junk. Second, third, fourth officers, first-rate chaps, but so-so +sailors. Doctor, frivolling with a lovely filly, pedigree not known. +Why, confound it! nobody takes this business seriously except the +captain, and he sits on a golden throne. He doesn't know that in any +real danger this swagger craft would be filled with foolishness. +There isn't more than one good boat's crew on board--sailors, lascars, +stewards, and all. As for the officers, if the surgeon would leave the +lovely ladies to themselves, he'd find cases worth treating, and duties +worth doing. He should keep himself fit for shocks. And he can take my +word for it--for I've been at sea since I was a kid, worse luck!--that a +man with anything to do on a ship ought to travel every day nose out for +shipwreck next day, and so on, port to port. Ship-surgeons, as well as +all other officers, weren't ordained to follow after cambric skirts and +lace handkerchiefs at sea. Believe me or not as you like, but, for a man +having work to do, woman, lovely woman, is rocks. Now, I suppose you'll +think I'm insolent, for I'm younger than you are, Marmion, but you know +what a rough-and-tumble fellow I am, and you'll not mind." + +"Well, Hungerford," I said, "to what does this lead?" + +"To Number 116 Intermediate, for one thing. It's letting off steam for +another. I tell you, Marmion, these big ships are too big. There are +those canvas boats. They won't work; you can't get them together. +You couldn't launch one in an hour. And as for the use of the others, +the lascars would melt like snow in any real danger. There's about one +decent boat's crew on the ship, that's all. There! I've unburdened +myself; I feel better." + +Presently he added, with a shake of the head: "See here: now-a-days we +trust too much to machinery and chance, and not enough to skill of hand +and brain stuff. I'd like to show you some of the crews I've had in the +Pacific and the China Sea--but I'm at it again! I'll now come, Marmion, +to the real reason why I brought you here. . . . Number 116 +Intermediate is under the weather; I found him fainting in the passage. +I helped him into his cabin. He said he'd been to you to get medicine, +and you'd given him some. Now, the strange part of the business is, I +know him. He didn't remember me, however--perhaps because he didn't get +a good look at me. Coincidence is a strange thing. I can point to a +dozen in my short life, every one as remarkable, if not as startling, as +this. Here, I'll spin you a yarn: + +"It happened four years ago. I had no moustache then, was fat like a +whale, and first mate on the 'Dancing Kate', a pearler in the Indian Ocean, +between Java and Australia. That was sailing, mind you--real seamanship, +no bally nonsense; a fight every weather, interesting all round. If it +wasn't a deadly calm, it was a typhoon; if it wasn't either, it was want +of food and water. I've seen us with pearls on board worth a thousand +quid, and not a drop of water nor three square meals in the caboose. But +that was life for men and not Miss Nancys. If they weren't saints, they +were sailors, afraid of nothing but God Almighty--and they do respect +Him, even when they curse the winds and the sea. Well, one day we were +lying in the open sea, about two hundred and fifty miles from Port +Darwin. There wasn't a breath of air. The sea was like glass; the sun +was drawing turpentine out of every inch of the 'Dancing Kate'. The world +was one wild blister. There wasn't a comfortable spot in the craft, and +all round us was that staring, oily sea. It was too hot to smoke, and I +used to make a Sede boy do my smoking for me. I got the benefit of the +smell without any work. I was lying under the droop of a dingey, making +the Sede boy call on all his gods for wind, with interludes of smoke, +when he chucked his deities and tobacco, and, pointing, shouted, 'Man! +man!' + +"I snatched a spy-glass. Sure enough, there was a boat on the water. +It was moving ever so slowly. It seemed to stop, and we saw something +lifted and waved, and then all was still again. I got a boat's crew +together, and away we went in that deadly smother. An hour's row and we +got within hail of the derelict--as one of the crew said, 'feelin' as if +the immortal life was jerked out of us.' The dingey lay there on the +glassy surface, not a sign of life about her. Yet I had, as I said, seen +something waved. The water didn't even lap its sides. It was ghostly, +I can tell you. Our oars licked the water; they didn't attack it. Now, +I'm going to tell you something, Marmion, that'll make you laugh. I +don't think I've got any poetry in me, but just then I thought of some +verses I learned when I was a little cove at Wellington--a devilishly +weird thing. It came to me at that moment like a word in my ear. It +made me feel awkward for a second. All sailors are superstitious, you +know. I'm superstitious about this ship. Never mind; I'll tell you the +verses, to show you what a queer thing memory is. The thing was called +'No Man's Sea': + + "'The days are dead in the No Man's Sea, + And God has left it alone; + The angels cover their heads and flee, + And the wild four winds have flown. + + "'There's never a ripple upon the tide, + There's never a word or sound; + But over the waste the white wraiths glide, + To look for the souls of the drowned. + + "'The No Man's Sea is a gaol of souls, + And its gate is a burning sun, + And deep beneath it a great bell tolls + For a death that never is done. + + "'Alas! for any that comes anear, + That lies on its moveless breast; + The grumbling water shall be his bier, + And never a place of rest."' + +"There are four of the verses. Well, I made a motion to stop the rowing, +and was mum for a minute. The men got nervous. They looked at the boat +in front of us, and then turned round, as though to see if the 'Dancing +Kate' was still in sight. I spoke, and they got more courage. I stood up +in the boat, but could see nothing in the dingey. I gave a sign to go +on, and soon we were alongside. In the bottom of the dingey lay a man, +apparently dead, wearing the clothes of a convict. One of the crew gave +a grunt of disgust, the others said nothing. I don't take to men often, +and to convicts precious seldom; but there was a look in this man's face +which the prison clothes couldn't demoralise--a damned pathetic look, +which seemed to say, 'Not guilty.' + +"In a minute I was beside him, and found he wasn't dead. Brandy brought +him round a little; but he was a bit gone in the head, and muttered all +the way back to the ship. I had unbuttoned his shirt, and I saw on his +breast a little ivory portrait of a woman. I didn't let the crew see it; +for the fellow, even in his delirium, appeared to know I had exposed the +thing, and drew the linen close in his fingers, and for a long time held +it at his throat." + +"What was the woman's face like, Hungerford?" I asked. + +He parried, remarking only that she had the face of a lady, and was +handsome. + +I pressed him. "But did it resemble any one you had ever seen?" + +With a slight droop of his eyelids, he said: "Don't ask foolish +questions, Marmion. Well, the castaway had a hard pull for life. He +wouldn't have lived at all, if a breeze hadn't come up and let us get +away to the coast. It was the beginning of the monsoon, and we went +bowling down towards Port Darwin, a crowd of Malay proas in our wake. +However, the poor beggar thought he was going to die, and one night he +told me his story. He was an escaped convict from Freemantle, Western +Australia. He had, with others, been taken up to the northern coast to +do some Government work, and had escaped in the dingey. His crime was +stealing funds belonging to a Squatting and Mining Company. There was +this extenuating circumstance: he could have replaced the money, which, +as he said, he'd only intended to use for a few weeks. But a personal +enemy threw suspicion on him, accounts were examined, and though he +showed he'd only used the money while more of his own was on the way to +him, the Company insisted on prosecuting him. For two reasons: because +it was itself in bad odour, and hoped by this trial to divert public +attention from its own dirty position; and because he had against him not +only his personal enemy, but those who wanted to hit the Company through +him. He'd filched to be able to meet the large expenses of his wife's +establishment. Into this he didn't enter minutely, and he didn't blame +her for having so big a menage; he only said he was sorry that he hadn't +been able to support it without having to come, even for a day, to the +stupidity of stealing. After two years he escaped. He asked me to write +a letter to his wife, which he'd dictate. Marmion, you or I couldn't +have dictated that letter if we'd taken a year to do it. There was no +religion in it, no poppy-cock, but straightforward talk, full of sorrow +for what he'd done, and for the disgrace he'd brought on her. I remember +the last few sentences as if I'd seen them yesterday. 'I am dying on the +open sea, disgraced, but free,' he said. 'I am not innocent in act, but +I was not guilty of intentional wrong. I did what I did that you should +have all you wished, all you ought to have. I ask but this--and I shall +soon ask for nothing--that you will have a kind thought, now and then, +for the man who always loved you, and loves you yet. I have never blamed +you that you did not come near me in my trouble; but I wish you were here +for a moment before I go away for ever. You must forgive me now, for you +will be free. If I were a better man I would say, God bless you. In my +last conscious moments I will think of you, and speak your name. And now +good-bye--an everlasting good-bye. I was your loving husband, and am your +lover until death.' And it was signed, 'Boyd Madras.' + +"However, he didn't die. Between the captain and myself, we kept life in +him, and at last landed him at Port Darwin; all of us, officers and crew, +swearing to let no one know he was a convict. And I'll say this for the +crew of the 'Dancing Kate' that, so far as I know, they kept their word. +That letter, addressed in care of a firm of Melbourne bankers, I gave +back to him before we landed. We made him up a purse of fifty pounds,-- +for the crew got to like him,--and left him at Port Darwin, sailing away +again in a few days to another pearl-field farther east. What happened +to him at Port Darwin and elsewhere, I don't know; but one day I found +him on a fashionable steamer in the Indian Ocean, looking almost as +near to Kingdom Come as when he starved in the dingey on No Man's Sea. +As I said before, I think he didn't recognise me; and he's lying now in +116 Intermediate, with a look on him that I've seen in the face of a man +condemned to death by the devils of cholera or equatorial fever. And +that's the story, Marmion, which I brought you to hear--told, as you +notice, in fine classical style." + +"And why do you tell ME this, Hungerford--a secret you've kept all these +years? Knowledge of that man's crime wasn't necessary before giving him +belladonna or a hot bath." + +Hungerford kept back the whole truth for reasons of his own. He said: +"Chiefly because I want you to take a decent interest in the chap. He +looks as if he might go off on the long voyage any tick o' the clock. +You are doctor, parson, and everything else of the kind on board. I like +the poor devil, but anyhow I'm not in a position to be going around with +ginger-tea in a spoon, or Ecclesiastes under my arm,--very good things. +Your profession has more or less to do with the mind as well as the body, +and you may take my word for it that Boyd Madras's mind is as sick as his +torso. By the way, he calls himself 'Charles Boyd,' so I suppose we +needn't recall to him his former experiences by adding the 'Madras.'" + +Hungerford squeezed my arm again violently, and added: "Look here, +Marmion, we understand each other in this, don't we? To do what we can +for the fellow, and be mum." + +Some of this looks rough and blunt, but as it was spoken there was that +in it which softened it to my ear. I knew he had told all he thought I +ought to know, and that he wished me to question him no more, nor to +refer to Mrs. Falchion, whose relationship to Boyd Madras--or Charles +Boyd--both of us suspected. + +"It was funny about those verses coming to my mind, wasn't it, Marmion?" +he continued. And he began to repeat one of them, keeping time to the +wave-like metre with his cheroot, winding up with a quick, circular +movement, and putting it again between his lips: + + "'There's never a ripple upon the tide, + There's never a breath or sound; + But over the waste the white wraiths glide, + To look for the souls of the drowned."' + +Then he jumped off the berth where he had been sitting, put on his +jacket, said it was time to take his turn on the bridge, and prepared to +go out, having apparently dismissed Number 116 Intermediate from his +mind. + +I went to Charles Boyd's cabin, and knocked gently. There was no +response. I entered. He lay sleeping soundly--the sleep that comes +after nervous exhaustion. I had a good chance to study him as he lay +there. The face was sensitive and well fashioned, but not strong; the +hands were delicate, yet firmly made. One hand was clinched upon that +portion of his breast where the portrait hung. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE TRAIL OF THE ISHMAELITE + +I went on deck again, and found Clovelly in the smoking-room. The +bookmaker was engaged in telling tales of the turf, alternated with comic +songs by Blackburn--an occupation which lasted throughout the voyage, and +was associated with electric appeals to the steward to fill the flowing +bowl. Clovelly came with me, and we joined Miss Treherne and her father. +Mr. Treherne introduced me to his daughter, and Clovelly amiably drew the +father into a discussion of communism as found in the South Sea Islands. + +I do not think my conversation with Miss Treherne was brilliant. She has +since told me that I appeared self-conscious and preoccupied. This being +no compliment to her, I was treated accordingly. I could have endorsed +Clovelly's estimate of her so far as her reserve and sedateness were +concerned. It seemed impossible to talk naturally. The events of the +day were interrupting the ordinary run of thought, and I felt at a +miserable disadvantage. I saw, however, that the girl was gifted and +clear of mind, and possessed of great physical charm, but of that fine +sort which must be seen in suitable surroundings to be properly +appreciated. Here on board ship a sweet gravity and a proud decorum--not +altogether unnecessary--prevented her from being seen at once to the best +advantage. Even at this moment I respected her the more for it, and was +not surprised, nor exactly displeased, that she adroitly drew her father +and Clovelly into the conversation. With Clovelly she seemed to find +immediate ground for naive and pleasant talk; on his part, deferential, +original, and attentive; on hers, easy, allusive, and warmed with piquant +humour. I admired her; saw how cleverly Clovelly was making the most of +her; guessed at the solicitude, studious care, and affection of her +bringing-up; watched the fond pleasure of the father as he listened; and +was angry with myself that Mrs. Falchion's voice rang in my ears at the +same moment as hers. But it did ring there, and the real value of that +smart tournament of ideas was partially lost to me. + +The next morning I went to Boyd Madras's cabin. He welcomed me +gratefully, and said that he was much better; as he seemed; but he +carried a hectic flush, such as comes to a consumptive person. I said +little to him beyond what was necessary for the discussion of his case. +I cautioned him about any unusual exertion, and was about to leave, when +an impulse came to me, and I returned and said: "You will not let me help +you in any other way?" + +"Yes," he answered; "I shall be very glad of your help, but not just yet. +And, Doctor, believe me, I think medicines can do very little. Though I +am thankful to you for visiting me, you need not take the trouble, unless +I am worse, and then I will send a steward to you, or go to you myself." + +What lay behind this request, unless it was sensitiveness, I could not +tell; but I determined to take my own course, and to visit him when I +thought fit. + +Still, I saw him but once or twice on the after-deck in the succeeding +days. He evidently wished to keep out of sight as much as possible. I +am ashamed to say there was a kind of satisfaction in this to me; for, +when a man's wife--and I believed she was Boyd Madras's wife--hangs on +your arm, and he himself is denied that privilege, and fares poorly +beside her sumptuousness, and lives as a stranger to her, you can +scarcely regard his presence with pleasure. And from the sheer force of +circumstances, as it seemed to me then, Mrs. Falchion's hand was often on +my arm; and her voice was always in my ear at meal-times and when I +visited Justine Caron to attend to her wound, or joined in the chattering +recreations of the music saloon. It was impossible not to feel her +influence; and if I did not yield entirely to it, I was more possessed by +it than I was aware. I was inquisitive to know beyond doubt that she was +the wife of this man. I think it was in my mind at the time that, +perhaps, by being with her much, I should be able to do him a service. +But there came a time when I was sufficiently undeceived. It was all a +game of misery in which some one stood to lose all round. Who was it: +she, or I, or the refugee of misfortune, Number 116 Intermediate? She +seemed safe enough. He or I would suffer in the crash of penalties. + +It was a strange situation. I, the acquaintance of a day, was welcome +within the circle of this woman's favour--though it was an unemotional +favour on her side; he, the husband, as I believed, though only half +the length of the ship away, was as distant from her as the north star. +When I sat with her on deck at night, I seemed to feel Boyd Madras's +face looking at me from the half-darkness of the after-deck; and Mrs. +Falchion, whose keen eyes missed little, remarked once on my gaze in that +direction. Thereafter I was more careful, but the idea haunted me. Yet, +I was not the only person who sat with her. Other men paid her attentive +court. The difference was, however, that with me she assumed ever so +delicate, yet palpable an air of proprietorship, none the less alluring +because there was no heart in it. So far as the other passengers were +concerned, there was nothing jarring to propriety in our companionship. +They did not know of Number 116 Intermediate. She had been announced as +a widow; and she had told Mrs. Callendar that her father's brother, who, +years before, had gone to California, had died within the past two years +and left her his property; and, because all Californians are supposed to +be millionaires, her wealth was counted fabulous. She was going now to +England, and from there to California in the following year. People said +that Dr. Marmion knew on which side his bread was buttered. They may +have said more unpleasant things, but I did not hear them, or of them. + +All the time I was conscious of a kind of dishonour, and perhaps it was +that which prompted me (I had fallen away from my intention of visiting +him freely) to send my steward to see how Boyd Madras came on, rather +than go myself. I was, however, conscious that the position could not-- +should not--be maintained long. The practical outcome of this knowledge +was not tardy. A new influence came into my life which was to affect it +permanently: but not without a struggle. + +A series of concerts and lectures had been arranged for the voyage, and +the fancy-dress ball was to close the first part of the journey--that is, +at Aden. One night a concert was on in the music saloon. I had just +come from seeing a couple of passengers who had been suffering from the +heat, and was debating whether to find Mrs. Falchion, who, I knew, was on +the other side of the deck, go in to the concert, or join Colonel Ryder +and Clovelly, who had asked me to come to the smoking-room when I could. +I am afraid I was balancing heavily in favour of Mrs. Falchion, when I +heard a voice that was new to me, singing a song I had known years +before, when life was ardent, and love first came--halcyon days in +country lanes, in lilac thickets, of pleasant Hertfordshire, where our +footsteps met a small bombardment of bursting seed-pods of the furze, +along the green common that sloped to the village. I thought of all +this, and of HER everlasting quiet. + +With a different voice the words of the song would have sent me out of +hearing; now I stood rooted to the spot, as the notes floated out past +me to the nervelessness of the Indian Ocean, every one of them a +commandment from behind the curtain of a sanctuary. + +The voice was a warm, full contralto of exquisite culture. +It suggested depths of rich sound behind, from which the singer, if she +chose, might draw, until the room and the deck and the sea ached with +sweetness. I scarcely dared to look in to see who it was, lest I should +find it a dream. I stood with my head turned away towards the dusky +ocean. When, at last, with the closing notes of the song, I went to +the port-hole and looked in, I saw that the singer was Miss Treherne. +There was an abstracted look in her eyes as she raised them, and she +seemed unconscious of the applause following the last chords of the +accompaniment. She stood up, folding the music as she did so, and +unconsciously raised her eyes toward the port-hole where I was. Her +glance caught mine, and instantly a change passed over her face. The +effect of the song upon her was broken; she flushed slightly, and, as I +thought, with faint annoyance. I know of nothing so little complimentary +to a singer as the audience that patronisingly listens outside a room or +window,--not bound by any sense of duty as an audience,--between whom and +the artists an unnatural barrier is raised. But I have reason to think +now that Belle Treherne was not wholly moved by annoyance--that she had +seen something unusual, maybe oppressive, in my look. She turned to her +father. He adjusted his glasses as if, in his pride, to see her better. +Then he fondly took her arm, and they left the room. + +Then I saw Mrs. Falchion's face at the port-hole opposite. Her eyes were +on me. An instant before, I had intended following Miss Treherne and her +father; now some spirit of defiance, some unaccountable revolution, +took possession of me, so that I flashed back to her a warm recognition. +I could not have believed it possible, if it had been told of me, that, +one minute affected by beautiful and sacred remembrances, the next I +should be yielding to the unimpassioned tyranny of a woman who could +never be anything but a stumbling-block and an evil influence. I had yet +to learn that in times of mental and moral struggle the mixed fighting +forces in us resolve themselves into two cohesive powers, and strive for +mastery; that no past thought or act goes for nothing at such a time, but +creeps out from the darkness where we thought it had gone for ever, and +does battle with its kind against the common foe. There moved before my +sight three women: one, sweet and unsubstantial, wistful and mute and +very young, not of the earth earthy; one, lissom, grave, with gracious +body and warm abstracted eyes, all delicacy, strength, reserve; the other +and last, daring, cold, beautiful, with irresistible charm, silent and +compelling. And these are the three women who have influenced my life, +who fought in me then for mastery; one from out the unchangeable past, +the others in the tangible and delible present. Most of us have to pass +through such ordeals before character and conviction receive their final +bias; before human nature has its wild trouble, and then settles into +"cold rock and quiet world;" which any lesser after-shocks may modify, +but cannot radically change. + +I tried to think. I felt that to be wholly a man I should turn from +those eyes drawing me on. I recalled the words of Clovelly, who had said +to me that afternoon, half laughingly: "Dr. Marmion, I wonder how many +of us wish ourselves transported permanently to that time when we didn't +know champagne from 'alter feiner madeira' or dry hock from sweet +sauterne; when a pretty face made us feel ready to abjure all the sinful +lusts of the flesh and become inheritors of the kingdom of heaven? Egad! +I should like to feel it once again. But how can we, when we have been +intoxicated with many things; when we are drunk with success and +experience; have hung on the fringe of unrighteousness; and know the +world backward, and ourselves mercilessly?" + +Was I, like the drunkard, coming surely to the time when I could +no longer say yes to my wisdom, or no to my weakness? I knew that, +an hour before, in filling a phial with medicine, I found I was doing +it mechanically, and had to begin over again, making an effort to keep my +mind to my task. I think it is an axiom that no man can properly perform +the business of life who indulges in emotional preoccupation. + +These thoughts, which take so long to write, passed then through my mind +swiftly; but her eyes were on me with a peculiar and confident +insistence--and I yielded. On my way to her I met Clovelly and Colonel +Ryder. Hungerford was walking between them. Colonel Ryder said: "I've +been saving that story for you, Doctor; better come and get it while it's +hot." + +This was a promised tale of the taking of Mobile in the American Civil +War. + +At any other time the invitation would have pleased me mightily; for, +apart from the other two, Hungerford's brusque and original conversation +was always a pleasure--so were his cheroots; but now I was under an +influence selfish in its source. At the same time I felt that Hungerford +was storing up some acute criticism of me, and that he might let me hear +it any moment. I knew, numbering the order of his duties, that he could +have but a very short time to spare for gossip at this juncture, yet I +said that I could not join them for half an hour or so. Hungerford had a +fashion of looking at me searchingly from under his heavy brows, and I +saw that he did so now with impatience, perhaps contempt. I was certain +that he longed to thrash me. That was his idea of punishment and +penalty. He linked his arm in those of the other two men, and they moved +on, Colonel Ryder saying that he would keep the story till I came and +would wait in the smoking-room for me. + +The concert was still on when I sat down beside Mrs. Falchion. "You +seemed to enjoy Miss Treherne's singing?" she said cordially enough as +she folded her hands in her lap. + +"Yes, I thought it beautiful. Didn't you?" + +"Pretty, most pretty; and admirable in technique and tone; but she has +too much feeling to be really artistic. She felt the thing, instead of +pretending to feel it--which makes all the difference. She belongs to +a race of delightful women, who never do any harm, whom everybody calls +good, and who are very severe on those who do not pretend to be good. +Still, all of that pleasant race will read their husband's letters and +smuggle. They have no civic virtues. Yet they would be shocked to bathe +on the beach without a machine, as American women do,--and they look for +a new fall of Jerusalem when one of their sex smokes a cigarette after +dinner. Now, I do not smoke cigarettes after dinner, so I can speak +freely. But, at the same time, I do not smuggle, and I do bathe on the +beach without a machine--when I am in a land where there are no sharks +and no taboo. If morally consumptive people were given a few years in +the South Seas, where they could not get away from nature, there would +be more strength and less scandal in society." + +I laughed. "There is a frank note for Mr. Clovelly, who thinks he knows +the world and my sex thoroughly. He says as much in his books.--Have you +read his 'A Sweet Apocalypse'? He said more than as much to me. But he +knows a mere nothing about women--their amusing inconsistencies; their +infidelity in little things and fidelity in big things; their self- +torturings; their inability to comprehend themselves; their periods of +religious insanity; their occasional revolts against the restraints of +a woman's position, known only to themselves in their dark hours; ah, +really, Dr. Marmion, he is ignorant, I assure you. He has only got two +or three kinds of women in his mind, and the representatives of these +fooled him, as far as he went with them, to their hearts' content. +Believe me, there is no one quite so foolish as the professional student +of character. He sees things with a glamour; he is impressionable; he +immediately begins to make a woman what he wishes her to be for his book, +not what she is; and women laugh at him when they read his books, or pity +him if they know him personally. I venture to say that I could make Mr. +Clovelly use me in a novel--not 'A Sweet Apocalypse'--as a placid lover +of fancy bazaars and Dorcas societies, instead of a very practical +person, who has seen life without the romantic eye, and knows as well the +working of a buccaneering craft--through consular papers and magisterial +trials, of course--as of a colonial Government House. But it is not +worth while trying to make him falsify my character. Besides, you are +here to amuse me." + +This speech, as she made it, was pleasantly audacious and clever. I +laughed, and made a gesture of mock dissent, and she added: "Now I have +finished my lecture. Please tie my shoe-lace there, and then, as I said, +amuse me. Oh, you can, if you choose! You are clever when you like to +be. Only, this time, do not let it be a professor's wife who foolishly +destroys herself, and cuts short what might have been a brilliant +career." + +On the instant I determined to probe deeper into her life, and try her +nerve, by telling a story with enough likeness to her own (if she was the +wife of Boyd Madras) to affect her acutely; though I was not sure I could +succeed. A woman who triumphs over sea-sickness, whom steam from the +boilers never affects, nor the propeller-screw disturbs, has little to +fear from the words of a man who is neither adroit, eloquent, nor +dramatic. However, I determined to try what I could do. I said: "I +fancy you would like something in the line of adventure; but my career +has not run in that direction, so I shall resort to less exciting fields, +and, I fear, also, a not very cheerful subject." + +"Oh, never mind!" said she. "What you wish, so long as it is not +conventional and hackneyed. But I know you will not be prosy, so go on, +please." + +"Well," I began, "once, in the hospital, I attended a man--Anson was his +name--who, when he thought he was going to die, confided to me his life's +secret. I liked the man; he was good-looking, amiable, but hopelessly +melancholy. He was dying as much from trouble as disease. No counsel +or encouragement had any effect upon him; he did, as I have seen so many +do--he resigned himself to the out-going tide. Well, for the secret. +He had been a felon. His crime had been committed through ministering to +his wife's vanity." + +Here I paused. I felt Mrs. Falchion's eyes searching me. +I raised mine steadily to hers with an impersonal glance, and saw +that she had not changed colour in the least. But her eyes were busy. + +I proceeded: "When he was disgraced she did not come near him. +When he went to her, after he was released" (here I thought it best to +depart from any close resemblance to Mrs. Falchion's own story), "and was +admitted to her, she treated him as an absolute stranger--as one who had +intruded, and might be violent. She said that she and her maid were +alone in the house, and hinted that he had come to disturb them. She +bade him go, or she must herself go. He called her by his own name, and +begged her, by the memory of their dead child, to speak kindly to him. +She said he was quite mistaken in her name, that she was Mrs. Glave, not +Mrs. Anson, and again insisted that he should go. He left her, and at +last, broken-hearted, found his way, in illness and poverty to the +hospital, where, toward the last, he was cared for by a noble girl, +a companion of his boyhood and his better days, who urged his wife to +visit him. She left him alone, said unpleasant things to the girl, did +not come to see her husband when he was dead, and provided nothing for +his burial. You see that, like you, she hated suffering and misery--and +criminals. The girl and her mother paid the expenses of the funeral, +and, with myself, were the only mourners. I am doubtful if the wife +knows even where he lies. I admit that the story sounds melodramatic; +but truth is more drama than comedy, I fancy. Now, what do you think of +it all, Mrs. Falchion?" + +I had felt her shrink a little at the earlier part of my story, as if +she feared that her own tale was to be brutally bared before her; but +that soon passed, and she languidly tapped the chair-arm as the narrative +continued. When it was finished, she leaned over slightly, and with +these same fingers tapped my arm. I thrilled involuntarily. + +"He died, did he?" she said. "That was the most graceful thing he could +do. So far as my knowledge of the world is concerned, men of his class +do NOT die. They live, and they never rise above their degradation. +They had not brains or courage enough to keep them out of gaol, and they +have not pluck or brains enough to succeed--afterwards. Your friend +Anson was quite gentlemanly in his action at the last. He had some sense +of the fitness of things. He could not find a place in the world without +making other people uncomfortable, and causing trouble. If he had lived, +he would always have added to the blight on his wife's career, and have +been an arrow--not a thorn--in her side. Very likely he would have +created a scandal for the good young girl who nursed him. He made the +false step, and compelled society to reject him. It did not want to do +so; it never does. It is long-suffering; it tries not to see and +acknowledge things until the culprit himself forces it to take action. +Then it says: 'Now you have openly and inconsiderately broken our bond of +mutual forbearance. You make me send you away. Go, then, behind stone +walls, and please do not come to me again. If you do, you will only be a +troublesome ghost. You will cause awkwardness and distress.' So, Mr. +Anson--I must be polite to him--did the most reasonable and proper thing. +He disappeared from the play before it actually became tragedy. There +was no tragedy in his death--death is a magnificent ally; it untangles +knots. The tragedy was in his living--in the perpetual ruin of his +wife's life, renewed every morning. He disappeared. Then the play +became drama, with only a little shadow of tragedy behind it. Now, +frankly, am I not right?" + +"Mrs. Falchion," I said, "your argument is clever, but it is only +incidentally true. You draw life, society and men no more correctly than +the author of 'A Sweet Apocalypse' would draw you. The social law you +sketch when reduced to its bare elements, is remorseless. It does not +provide for repentance, for restitution, for recovering a lost paradise. +It makes an act final, a sin irrevocable." + +"Well, since we are beginning to talk like a couple of books by a pair of +priggish philosophers, I might as well say that I think sin is final so +far as the domestic and social machinery of the world is concerned. What +his religious belief requires of a man is one thing, what his fellow-men +require of him is another. The world says, You shall have latitude +enough to swing in freely, but you must keep within the code. As soon +as you break the law openly, and set the machinery of public penalty in +motion, there is an end of you, so far as this world is concerned. You +may live on, but you have been broken on the wheel, and broken you always +will be. It is not a question of right or wrong, of kindness or cruelty, +but of general expediency and inevitableness. To all effect, Mr. Anson +was dead before he breathed his last. He died when he passed within the +walls of a gaol--condemned for theft." + +There was singular scorn in her last few words, and, dissent as I did +from her merciless theories, I was astonished at her adroitness and +downrightness--enchanted by the glow of her face. To this hour, knowing +all her life as I do, I can only regard her as a splendid achievement of +nature, convincing even when at the most awkward tangents with the +general sense and the straitest interpretation of life; convincing even +in those other and later incidents, which showed her to be acting not +so much by impulse as by the law of her nature. Her emotions were +apparently rationalised at birth--to be derationalised and broken up by a +power greater than herself before her life had worked itself out. I had +counted her clever; I had not reckoned with her powers of reasoning. +Influenced as I was by emotion when in her presence, I resorted to a +personal application of my opinions--the last and most unfair resort of +a disputant. I said I would rather be Anson dead than Mrs. Anson living; +I would rather be the active than the passive sinner; the victim, than a +part of that great and cruel machine of penalty. + +"The passive sinner!" she replied. "Why, what wrong did she do?" + +The highest moral conceptions worked dully in her. Yet she seemed then, +as she always appeared to be, free from any action that should set the +machine of penalty going against herself. She was inexorable, but she +had never, knowingly, so much as slashed the hem of the moral code. + +"It was to give his wife pleasure that Anson made the false step," I +urged. + +"Do you think she would have had the pleasure at the price? The man was +vain and selfish to run any risk, to do anything that might endanger her +safety--that is, her happiness and comfort." + +"But suppose he knew that she loved ease and pleasure?--that he feared +her anger or disdain if he did not minister to her luxuries?" + +"Then he ought not to have married that kind of a woman." The hardness +in her voice was matched at that moment by the coldness of her face. + +"That is begging the question," I replied. "What would such a selfish +woman do in such a case, if her pleasure could not be gratified?" + +"You must ask that kind of woman," was her ironical answer. + +I rashly felt that her castle of strength was crumbling. I ventured +farther. + +"I have done so." + +She turned slightly toward me, yet not nervously, as I had expected. + +"What did she say?" + +"She declined to answer directly." + +There was a pause, in which I felt her eyes searching my face. I fear +I must have learned dissimulation well; for, after a minute, I looked +at her, and saw, from the absence of any curious anxiety, that I had +betrayed nothing. She looked me straight in the eyes and said: "Dr. +Marmion, a man must not expect to be forgiven, who has brought shame on a +woman." + +"Not even when he has repented and atoned?" + +"Atoned! How mad you are! How can there be atonement? You cannot wipe +things out--on earth. We are of the earth. Records remain. If a man +plays the fool, the coward, and the criminal, he must expect to wear the +fool's cap, the white feather, and the leg-chain until his life's end. +And now, please, let us change the subject. We have been bookish long +enough." She rose with a gesture of impatience. + +I did not rise. "Pardon me, Mrs. Falchion," I urged, "but this interests +me so. I have thought much of Anson lately. Please, let us talk a +little longer. Do sit down." + +She sat down again with an air of concession rather than of pleasure. + +"I am interested," I said, "in looking at this question from a woman's +standpoint. You see, I am apt to side with the miserable fellow who made +a false step--foolish, if you like--all for love of a selfish and +beautiful woman." + +"She was beautiful?" + +"Yes, as you are." She did not blush at that rank compliment, any more +than a lioness would, if you praised the astonishing sleekness and beauty +of its skin. + +"And she had been a true wife to him before that?" + +"Yes, in all that concerned the code." + +"Well?--Well, was not that enough? She did what she could, as long as +she could." She leaned far back in the chair, her eyes half shut. + +"Don't you think--as a woman, not as a theorist--that Mrs. Anson might +at least have come to him when he was dying?" + +"It would only have been uncomfortable for her. She had no part in his +life; she could not feel with him. She could do nothing." + +"But suppose she had loved him? By that memory, then, of the time when +they took each other for better or for worse, until death should part +them?" + +"Death did part them when the code banished him; when he passed from a +free world into a cage. Besides, we are talking about people marrying, +not about their loving." + +"I will admit," I said, with a little raw irony, "that I was not exact in +definition." + +Here I got a glimpse into her nature which rendered after events not so +marvellous to me as they might seem to others. She thought a moment +quite indolently, and then continued: "You make one moralise like George +Eliot. Marriage is a condition, but love must be an action. The one is +a contract, the other is complete possession, a principle--that is, if it +exists at all. I do not know." + +She turned the rings round mechanically on her finger; and among them was +a wedding-ring! Her voice had become low and abstracted, and now she +seemed to have forgotten my presence, and was looking out upon the +humming darkness round us, through which now and again there rang a +boatswain's whistle, or the loud laugh of Blackburn, telling of a joyous +hour in the smoking-room. + +I am now about to record an act of madness, of folly, on my part. I +suppose most men have such moments of temptation, but I suppose, also, +that they act more sensibly and honourably than I did then. Her hand had +dropped gently on the chair-arm, near to my own, and though our fingers +did not touch, I felt mine thrilled and impelled toward hers. I do not +seek to palliate my action. Though the man I believed to be her husband +was below, I yielded myself to an imagined passion for her. In that +moment I was a captive. I caught her hand and kissed it hotly. + +"But you might know what love is," I said. "You might learn--learn of +me. You--" + +Abruptly and with surprise she withdrew her hand, and, without any +visible emotion save a quicker pulsation of her breast, which might have +been indignation, spoke. "But even if I might learn, Dr. Marmion, be +sure that neither your college nor Heaven gave you the knowledge to +instruct me. . . . There: pardon me, if I speak harshly; but this is +most inconsiderate of you, most impulsive--and compromising. You are +capable of singular contrasts. Please let us be friends, friends simply. +You are too interesting for a lover, really you are." + +Her words were a cold shock to my emotion--my superficial emotion; +though, indeed, for that moment she seemed adorable to me. Without any +apparent relevancy, but certainly because my thoughts in self-reproach +were hovering about cabin 116 Intermediate, I said, with a biting shame, +"I do not wonder now!" + +"You do not wonder at what?" she questioned; and she laid her hand +kindly on my arm. + +I put the hand away a little childishly, and replied, "At men going to +the devil." But this was not what I thought. + +"That does not sound complimentary to somebody. May I ask you what you +mean?" she said calmly. "I mean that Anson loved his wife, and she did +not love him; yet she held him like a slave, torturing him at the same +time." + +"Does it not strike you that this is irrelevant? You are not my husband +--not my slave. But, to be less personal, Mr. Anson's wife was not +responsible for his loving her. Love, as I take it, is a voluntary +thing. It pleased him to love her--he would not have done it if it did +not please him; probably his love was an inconvenient thing domestically +--if he had no tact." + +"Of that," I said, "neither you nor I can know with any certainty. But, +to be scriptural, she reaped where she had not sowed, and gathered where +she had not strawed. If she did not make the man love her,--I believe +she did, as I believe you would, perhaps unconsciously, do,--she used his +love, and was therefore better able to make all other men admire her. +She was richer in personal power for that experience; but she was not +grateful for it nor for his devotion." + +"You mean, in fact, that I--for you make the personal application--shall +be better able henceforth to win men's love, because--ah, surely, Dr. +Marmion, you do not dignify this impulse, this foolishness of yours, by +the name of love!" She smiled a little satirically at the fingers I had +kissed. + +I was humiliated, and annoyed with her and with myself, though, down +in my mind, I knew that she was right. "I mean," said I, "that I can +understand how men have committed suicide because of just such things. +My wonder is that Anson, poor devil! did not do it." I knew I was +talking foolishly. + +"He hadn't the courage, my dear sir. He was gentlemanly enough to die, +but not to be heroic to that extent. For it does need a strong dash of +heroism to take one's own life. As I conceive it, suicide would have +been the best thing for him when he sinned against the code. The world +would have pitied him then, would have said, He spared us the trial of +punishing him. But to pay the vulgar penalty of prison--ah!" + +She shuddered and then almost coldly continued: "Suicide is an act of +importance; it shows that a man recognises, at least, the worthlessness +of his life. He does one dramatic and powerful thing; he has an instant +of great courage, and all is over. If it had been a duel in which, of +intention, he would fire wide, and his assailant would fire to kill, so +much the better; so much the more would the world pity. But either is +superior, as a final situation, than death with a broken heart--I suppose +that is possible?--and disgrace, in a hospital." + +"You seem to think only of the present, only of the code and the world; +and as if there were no heroism in a man living down his shame, righting +himself heroically at all points possible, bearing his penalty, and +showing the courage of daily wearing the sackcloth of remorse and +restitution." + +"Oh," she persisted, "you make me angry. I know what you wish to +express; I know that you consider it a sin to take one's life, even in +'the high Roman fashion.' But, frankly, I do not, and I fear--or rather, +I fancy--that I never shall. After all, your belief is a pitiless one; +for, as I have tried to say, the man has not himself alone to consider, +but those to whom his living is a perpetual shame and menace and cruelty +insupportable--insupportable! Now, please, let us change the subject +finally; and"--here she softly laughed--"forgive me if I have treated +your fancied infatuation lightly or indifferently. I want you for a +friend--at least, for a friendly acquaintance. I do not want you for +a lover." + +We both rose. I was not quite content with her nor with myself yet. I +felt sure that while she did not wish me for a lover, she was not averse +to my playing the devoted cavalier, who should give all, while she should +give nothing. I knew that my punishment had already begun. We paced the +deck in silence; and once, as we walked far aft, I saw, leaning upon the +railing of the intermediate deck, and looking towards us--Boyd Madras; +and the words of that letter which he wrote on the No Man's Sea came to +me. + +At length she said: "You have made no reply to my last remark. Are we +to be friends, and not lovers? Or shall you cherish enmity against me? +Or, worse still,"--and here she laughed, I thought, a little ironically, +--"avoid me, and be as icy as you have been--fervid?" + +"Mrs. Falchion," I said, "your enemy I do not wish to be--I could not be +if I wished; but, for the rest, you must please let me see what I may +think of myself to-morrow. There is much virtue in to-morrow," I added. +"It enables one to get perspective." + +"I understand," she said; and then was silent. We walked the deck slowly +for several minutes. Then we were accosted by two ladies of a committee +that had the fancy-dress ball in hand. They wished to consult Mrs. +Falchion in certain matters of costume and decoration, for which, it had +been discovered, she had a peculiar faculty. She turned to me half +inquiringly, and I bade her good-night, inwardly determined (how easy it +is after having failed to gratify ourselves!) that the touch of her +fingers should never again make my heart beat faster. + +I joined Colonel Ryder and Clovelly in the smoking-room. Hungerford, +as I guessed gladly, was gone. I was too much the coward to meet his eye +just then. Colonel Ryder was estimating the amount he would wager--if he +were in the habit of betting--that the 'Fulvia' could not turn round in +her tracks in twenty minutes, while he parenthetically endorsed +Hungerford's remarks to me--though he was ignorant of them--that lascars +should not be permitted on English passenger ships. He was supported by +Sir Hayes Craven, a shipowner, who further said that not one out of ten +British sailors could swim, while not five out of ten could row a boat +properly. Ryder's anger was great, because Clovelly remarked with mock +seriousness that the lascars were picturesque, and asked the American if +he had watched them listlessly eating rice and curry as they squatted +between decks; whether he had observed the Serang, with his silver +whistle, who ruled them, and despised us "poor white trash;" and if he +did not think it was a good thing to have fatalists like them as sailors +--they would be cool in time of danger. + +Colonel Ryder's indignation was curbed, however, by the bookmaker, +who, having no views, but seeing an opportunity for fun, brought up +reinforcements of chaff and slang, easily construable into profanity, +and impregnated with terse humour. Many of the ladies had spoken of the +bookmaker as one of the best-mannered men on board. So he was to all +appearance. None dressed with better taste, nor carried himself with +such an air. There was even a deferential tone in his strong language, a +hesitating quaintness, which made it irresistible. He was at the service +of any person on board needing championship. His talents were varied. +He could suggest harmonies in colour to the ladies at one moment, and at +the next, in the seclusion of the bar counter, arrange deadly harmonies +in liquor. He was an authority on acting; he knew how to edit a +newspaper; he picked out the really nice points in the sermons delivered +by the missionaries in the saloon; he had some marvellous theories about +navigation; and his trick with a salad was superb. He now convulsed the +idlers in the smoking-room with laughter, and soon deftly drew off the +discussion to the speed of the vessel, arranging a sweep-stake +immediately, upon the possibilities of the run. He instantly proposed to +sell the numbers by auction. He was the auctioneer. With his eye-glass +at his eye, and Bohemian pleasantry falling from his lips, he ran the +prices up. He was selling Clovelly's number, and had advanced it beyond +the novelist's own bidding, when suddenly the screw stopped, the engines +ceased working, and the 'Fulvia' slowed down. + +The numbers remained unsold. Word came to us that an accident had +happened to the machinery, and that we should be hove-to for a day, +or longer, to accomplish necessary repairs. How serious the accident +to the machinery was no one knew. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +ACCUSING FACES + +While we were hove-to, the 'Porcupine' passed us. In all probability it +would now get to Aden ahead of us; and herein lay a development of the +history of Mrs. Falchion. I was standing beside Belle Treherne as the +ship came within hail of us and signalled to see what was the matter. +Mrs. Falchion was not far from us. She was looking intently at the +vessel through marine-glasses, and she did not put them down until it had +passed. Then she turned away with an abstracted light in her eyes and a +wintry smile; and the look and the smile continued when she sat down in +her deck-chair and leaned her cheek meditatively on the marine-glass. +But I saw now that something was added to the expression of her face--a +suggestion of brooding or wonder. Belle Treherne, noticing the direction +of my glances, said: "Have you known Mrs. Falchion long?" + +"No, not long," I replied. "Only since she came on board." + +"She is very clever, I believe." + +I felt my face flushing, though, reasonably, there was no occasion for +it, and I said: "Yes, she is one of the ablest women I have ever met." + +"She is beautiful, too--very beautiful." This very frankly. + +"Have you talked with her?" asked I. + +"Yes, a little this morning, for the first time. She did not speak much, +however." Here Miss Treherne paused, and then added meditatively: "Do +you know, she impressed me as having singular frankness and singular +reserve as well? I think I admired it. There is no feeling in her +speech, and yet it has great candour. I never before met any one like +her. She does not wear her heart upon her sleeve, I imagine." + +A moment of irony came over me; that desire to say what one really does +not believe (a feminine trait), and I replied: "Are both those articles +necessary to any one? A sleeve?--well, one must be clothed. But a +heart?--a cumbrous thing, as I take it." + +Belle Treherne turned, and looked me steadily in the eyes for an instant, +as if she had suddenly awakened from abstraction, and slowly said, while +she drew back slightly: "Dr. Marmion, I am only a girl, I know, and +inexperienced, but I hoped most people of education and knowledge of +life were free from that kind of cynicism to be read of in books." Then +something in her thoughts seemed to chill her words and manner, and her +father coming up a moment after, she took his arm, and walked away with a +not very cordial bow to me. + +The fact is, with a woman's quick intuition, she had read in my tone +something suggestive of my recent experience with Mrs. Falchion. Her +fine womanliness awoke; the purity of her thoughts, rose in opposition to +my flippancy and to me; and I knew that I had raised a prejudice not easy +to destroy. + +This was on a Friday afternoon. + +On the Saturday evening following, the fancy-dress ball was to occur. +The accident to the machinery and our delay were almost forgotten in the +preparations therefor. I had little to do; there was only one sick man +on board, and my hand could not cure his sickness. How he fared, my +uncomfortable mind, now bitterly alive to a sense of duty, almost +hesitated to inquire. Yet a change had come. A reaction had set in for +me. Would it be permanent? I dared scarcely answer that question, with +Mrs. Falchion at my right hand at table, with her voice at my ear. I was +not quite myself yet; I was struggling, as it were, with the effects of a +fantastic dream. + +Still, I had determined upon my course. I had made resolutions. I had +ended the chapter of dalliance. I had wished to go to 116 Intermediate +and let its occupant demand what satisfaction he would. I wanted to say +to Hungerford that I was an ass; but that was even harder still. He was +so thorough and uncompromising in nature, so strong in moral fibre, that +I felt his sarcasm would be too outspoken for me just at present. +In this, however, I did not give him credit for a fine sense of +consideration, as after events showed. Although there had been no spoken +understanding between us that Mrs. Falchion was the wife of Boyd Madras, +the mind of one was the other's also. I understood exactly why he told +me Boyd Madras's story: it was a warning. He was not the man to harp on +things. He gave the hint, and there the matter ended, so far as he was +concerned, until a time might come when he should think it his duty to +refer to the subject again. Some time before, he had shown me the +portrait of the girl who had promised to be his wife. She, of course, +could trust HIM anywhere, everywhere. + +Mrs. Falchion had seen the change in me, and, I am sure, guessed the new +direction of my thoughts, and knew that I wished to take refuge in a new +companionship--a thing, indeed, not easily to be achieved, as I felt now; +for no girl of delicate and proud temper would complacently regard a +hasty transference of attention from another to herself. Besides, it +would be neither courteous nor reasonable to break with Mrs. Falchion +abruptly. The error was mine, not hers. She had not my knowledge of the +immediate circumstances, which made my position morally untenable. She +showed unembarrassed ignorance of the change. At the same time I caught +a tone of voice and a manner which showed she was not actually oblivious, +but was touched in that nerve called vanity; and from this much feminine +hatred springs. + +I made up my mind to begin a course of scientific reading, and was seated +in my cabin, vainly trying to digest a treatise on the pathology of the +nervous system, when Hungerford appeared at the door. With a nod, he +entered, threw himself down on the cabin sofa, and asked for a match. +After a pause, he said: "Marmion, Boyd Madras, alias Charles Boyd, has +recognised me." + +I rose to get a cigar, thus turning my face from him, and said: "Well?" + +"Well, there isn't anything very startling. I suppose he wishes I had +left him in the dingey on No Man's Sea. He's a fool." + +"Indeed, why?" + +"Marmion, are your brains softening? Why does he shadow a woman who +wouldn't lift her finger to save him from battle, murder, or sudden +death?" + +"From the code," I said, in half soliloquy. + +"From the what?" + +"Oh, never mind, Hungerford. I suppose he is shadowing--Mrs. Falchion?" + +He eyed me closely. + +"I mean the woman that chucked his name; that turned her back on him when +he was in trouble; that hopes he is dead, if she doesn't believe that he +is actually; that would, no doubt, treat him as a burglar if he went to +her, got down on his knees, and said: 'Mercy, my girl, I've come back to +you a penitent prodigal. Henceforth I shall be as straight as the sun, +so help me Heaven and your love and forgiveness!'" + +Hungerford paused, as if expecting me to reply; but, leaning forward on +my knees and smoking hard, I remained silent. This seemed to anger him, +for he said a little roughly: "Why doesn't he come out and give you +blazes on the promenade deck, and corner her down with a mighty cheek, +and levy on her for a thousand pounds? Both you and she would think more +of him. Women don't dislike being bullied, if it is done in the right +way--haven't I seen it the world over, from lubra to dowager? I tell +you, man--sinning or not--was meant to be woman's master and lover, and +just as much one as the other." + +At this point Hungerford's manner underwent a slight change, and he +continued: "Marmion, I wouldn't have come near you, only I noticed you +have altered your course, and are likely to go on a fresh tack. It isn't +my habit to worry a man. I gave you a signal, and you didn't respond at +first. Well, we have come within hail again; and now, don't you think +that you might help to straighten this tangle, and try to arrange a +reconciliation between those two? + +"The scheme is worth trying. Nobody need know but you and me. It +wouldn't be much of a sacrifice to her to give him a taste of the thing +she swore to do--how does it run?--'to have and to hold from this day +forward'?--I can't recall it; but it's whether the wind blows fair or +foul, or the keel scrapes the land or gives to the rock, till the sea +gulps one of 'em down for ever. That's the sense of the thing, Marmion, +and the contract holds between the two, straight on into the eternal +belly. Whatever happens, a husband is a husband, and a wife a wife. It +seems to me that, in the sight of Heaven, it's he that's running fair in +the teeth of the wind, every timber straining, and she that's riding with +it, well coaled, flags flying, in an open channel, and passing the +derelict without so much as, 'Ahoy there!'" + +Now, at this distance of time, I look back, and see Hungerford, "the +rowdy sailor," as he called himself, lying there, his dark grey eyes +turned full on me; and I am convinced that no honester, more sturdy- +minded man ever reefed a sail, took his turn upon the bridge, or walked +the dry land in the business of life. It did not surprise me, a year +after, when I saw in public prints that he was the hero of--but that must +be told elsewhere. I was about to answer him then as I knew he would +wish, when a steward appeared and said: "Mr. Boyd, 116 Intermediate, +wishes you would come to him, sir, if you would be so kind." + +Hungerford rose, and, as I made ready to go, urged quietly: "You've got +the charts and soundings, Marmion, steam ahead!" and, with a swift but +kindly clench of my shoulder, he left me. In that moment there came a +cowardly feeling, a sense of shamefacedness, and then, hard upon it, and +overwhelming it, a determination to serve Boyd Madras so far as lay in my +power, and to be a man, and not a coward or an idler. + +When I found him he was prostrate. In his eyes there was no anger, no +indignation, nor sullenness--all of which he might reasonably have felt; +and instantly I was ashamed of the thought which, as I came to him, +flashed through my mind, that he might do some violent thing. Not that +I had any fear of violence; but I had an active dislike of awkward +circumstances. I felt his fluttering pulse, and noted the blue line on +his warped lips. I gave him some medicine, and then sat down. There was +a silence. What could I say? A dozen thoughts came to my mind, but I +rejected them. It was difficult to open up the subject. At last he put +his hand upon my arm and spoke: + +"You told me one night that you would help me if you could. I ought to +have accepted your offer at first; it would have been better.--No, please +don't speak just yet. I think I know what you would say. I knew that +you meant all you urged upon me; that you liked me. I was once worthy +of men's liking, perhaps, and I had good comrades; but that is all over. +You have not come near me lately, but it wasn't because you felt any +neglect, or wished to take back your words; but--because of something +else. . . . I understand it all. She has great power. She always +had. She is very beautiful. I remember when--but I will not call it +back before you, though, God knows, I go over it all every day and every +night, until it seems that only the memory of her is real, and that she +herself is a ghost. I ought not to have crossed her path again, even +unknown to her. But I have done it, and now I cannot go out of that path +without kneeling before her once again, as I did long ago. Having seen +her, breathed the same air, I must speak or die; perhaps it will be both. +That is a power she has: she can bend one to her will, although she +often, involuntarily, wills things that are death to others. One MUST +care for her, you understand; it is natural, even when it is torture to +do so." + +He put his hand on his side and moved as if in pain. I reached over and +felt his pulse, then took his hand and pressed it, saying: "I will be +your friend now, Madras, in so far as I can." + +He looked up at me gratefully, and replied: "I know that--I know that. +It is more than I deserve." + +Then he began to speak of his past. He told me of Hungerford's kindness +to him on the 'Dancing Kate', of his luckless days at Port Darwin, of his +search for his wife, his writing to her, and her refusal to see him. He +did not rail against her. He apologised for her, and reproached himself. +"She is most singular," he continued, "and different from most women. +She never said she loved me, and she never did, I know. Her father urged +her to marry me; he thought I was a good man." + +Here he laughed a little bitterly. "But it was a bad day for her. +She never loved any one, I think, and she cannot understand what love +is, though many have cared for her. She is silent where herself is +concerned. I think there was some trouble--not love, I am sure of that +--which vexed her, and made her a little severe at times; something +connected with her life, or her father's life, in Samoa. One can only +guess, but white men take what are called native wives there very often +--and who can tell? Her father--but that is her secret! . . . While +I was right before the world, she was a good wife to me in her way. When +I went wrong, she treated me as if I were dead, and took her old name. +But if I could speak to her quietly once more, perhaps she would listen. +It would be no good at all to write. Perhaps she would never begin the +world with me again, but I should like to hear her say, 'I forgive you. +Good-bye.' There would be some comfort in a kind farewell from her. +You can see that, Dr. Marmion?" + +He paused, waiting for me to speak. "Yes, I can see that," I said; and +then I added: "Why did you not speak to her before you both came on board +at Colombo?" + +"I had no chance. I only saw her in the street, an hour before the ship +sailed. I had scarcely time to take my passage." + +Pain here checked his utterance, and when he recovered, he turned again +to me, and continued: "To-morrow night there is to be a fancy-dress ball +on board. I have been thinking. I could go in a good disguise. I could +speak to her, and attract no notice; and if she will not listen to me, +why, then, that ends it. I shall know the worst, and to know the worst +is good." + +"Yes," said I; "and what do you wish me to do?" + +"I wish to go in a disguise, of course; to dress in your cabin, if you +will let me. I cannot dress here, it would attract attention; and I am +not a first-class passenger." + +"I fear," I replied, "that it is impossible for me to assist you to the +privileges of a first-class passenger. You see, I am an officer of the +ship. But still I can help you. You shall leave this cabin to-night. +I will arrange so that you may transfer yourself to one in the first- +class section. . . . No, not a word; it must be as I wish in this. +You are ill; I can do you that kindness at least, and then, by right, you +can attend the ball, and, after it, your being among the first-class +passengers can make little difference; for you will have met and spoken +then, either to peace or otherwise." + +I had very grave doubts of any reconciliation; the substance of my +notable conversation with Mrs. Falchion was so prominent in my mind. +I feared she would only reproduce the case of Anson and his wife. I was +also afraid of a possible scene--which showed that I was not yet able to +judge of her resources. After a time, in which we sat silent, I said to +Madras: "But suppose she should be frightened?--should--should make a +scene?" + +He raised himself to a sitting posture. "I feel better," he said. Then, +answering my question: "You do not know her quite. She will not stir a +muscle. She has nerve. I have seen her in positions of great peril and +trial. She is not emotional, though I truly think she will wake one day +and find her heart all fire but not for me. Still, I say that all will +be quite comfortable, so far as any demonstration on her part is +concerned. She will not be melodramatic, I do assure you." + +"And the disguise--your dress?" inquired I. + +He rose from the berth slowly, and, opening a portmanteau, drew from it a +cloth of white and red, fringed with gold. It was of beautiful texture, +and made into the form of a toga or mantle. He said: "I was a seller of +such stuffs in Colombo, and these I brought with me, because I could not +dispose of them without sacrifice when I left hurriedly. I have made +them into a mantle. I could go as--a noble Roman, perhaps!" Then a +slight, ironical smile crossed his lips, and he stretched out his thin +but shapely arms, as if in derision of himself. + +"You will go as Menelaus the Greek," said I. + +"I as Menelaus the Greek?" The smile became a little grim. + +"Yes, as Menelaus; and I will go as Paris." I doubt not that my voice +showed a good deal of self-scorn at the moment; but there was a kind of +luxury in self-abasement before him. "Your wife, I know, intends to go +as Helen of Troy. It is all mumming. Let it stand so, as Menelaus and +Helen and Paris before there was any Trojan war, and as if there never +could be any--as if Paris went back discomfited, and the other two were +reconciled." + +His voice was low and broken. "I know you exaggerate matters, and +condemn yourself beyond reason," he replied. "I will do as you say. +But, Dr. Marmion, it will not be all mumming, as you shall see." + +A strange look came upon his face at this. I could not construe it; +and, after a few words of explanation regarding his transference to the +forward part of the ship, I left him. I found the purser, made the +necessary arrangements for him, and then sought my cabin, humbled in many +ways. I went troubled to bed. After a long wakefulness, I dozed away +into that disturbed vestibule of sleep where the world's happenings +mingle with the visions of unconsciousness. I seemed to see a man's +heart beating in his bosom in growing agonies, until, with one last +immense palpitation, it burst, and life was gone. Then the dream +changed, and I saw a man in the sea, drowning, who seemed never to drown +entirely, his hands ever beating the air and the mocking water. I +thought that I tried many times to throw him a lighted buoy in the half- +shadow, but some one held me back, and I knew that a woman's arms were +round me. + +But at last the drowning man looked up and saw the woman so, and, with a +last quiver of the arms, he sank from sight. When he was gone, the +woman's arms dropped away from me; but when I turned to speak to her, +she, too, had gone. + +I awoke. + +Two stewards were talking in the passage, and one was saying, "She'll get +under way by daybreak, and it will be a race with the 'Porcupine' to Aden. +How the engines are kicking below!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MUMMERS ALL + +The next day was beautiful, if not enjoyable. Stirring preparations +were being made for the ball. Boyd Madras was transferred to a cabin far +forward, but he did not appear at any meal in the saloon, or on deck. In +the morning I was busy in the dispensary. While I was there, Justine +Caron came to get some medicine that I had before given her. Her hand +was now nearly well. Justine had nerves, and it appeared to me that her +efforts to please her mistress, and her occasional failures, were wearing +her unduly. I said to her: "You have been worried, Miss Caron?" + +"Oh, no, Doctor," she quickly replied. + +I looked at her a little sceptically, and she said at last: "Well, +perhaps a little. You see, madame did not sleep well last night, and I +read to her. It was a little difficult, and there was not much choice of +books." + +"What did you read?" I asked mechanically, as I prepared her medicine. + +"Oh, some French novel first--De Maupassant's; but madame said he was +impertinent--that he made women fools and men devils. Then I tried some +modern English tales, but she said they were silly. I knew not what to +do. But there was Shakespeare. I read Antony and Cleopatra, and she +said that the play was grand, but the people were foolish except when +they died--their deaths were magnificent. Madame is a great critic; she +is very clever." + +"Yes, yes, I know that; but when did she fall asleep?" + +"About four o'clock in the morning. I was glad, because she is very +beautiful when she has much sleep." + +"And you--does not sleep concern you in this matter of madame?" + +"For me," she said, looking away, "it is no matter. I have no beauty. +Besides, I am madame's servant,"--she blushed slightly at this,"--and she +is generous with money." + +"Yes, and you like money so much?" + +Her eyes flashed a little defiantly as she looked me in the face. "It is +everything to me." + +She paused as if to see the effect upon me, or to get an artificial +(I knew it was artificial) strength to go on, then she added: "I love +money. I work for it; I would bear all for it--all that a woman could +bear. I--" But here she paused again, and, though the eyes still +flashed, the lips quivered. Hers was not the face of cupidity. It was +sensitive, yet firm, as with some purpose deep as her nature was by +creation and experience, and always deepening that nature. I suddenly +got the conviction that this girl had a sorrow of some kind in her life, +and that this unreal affection for money was connected with it. Perhaps +she saw my look of interest, for she hurriedly continued: "But, pardon +me, I am foolish. I shall be better when the pain is gone. Madame is +kind; she will let me sleep this afternoon, perhaps." + +I handed her the medicine, and then asked: "How long have you known Mrs. +Falchion, Miss Caron?" + +"Only one year." + +"Where did you join her?" + +"In Australia." + +"In Australia? You lived there?" + +"No, monsieur, I did not live there." + +A thought came to my mind--the nearness of New Caledonia to Australia, +and New Caledonia was a French colony--a French penal colony! I smiled +as I said the word penal to myself. Of course the word could have no +connection with a girl like her, but still she might have lived in the +colony. So I added quietly: "You perhaps had come from New Caledonia?" + +Her look was candid, if sorrowful. "Yes, from New Caledonia." + +Was she, thought I, the good wife of some convict--some political +prisoner?--the relative of some refugee of misfortune? Whatever she was, +I was sure that she was free from any fault. She evidently thought that +I might suspect something uncomplimentary of her, for she said: "My +brother was an officer at Noumea. He is dead. I am going to France, +when I can." + +I tried to speak gently to her. I saw that her present position must +be a trial. I advised her to take more rest, or she would break down +altogether, for she was weak and nervous; I hinted that she might have +to give up entirely, if she continued to tax herself heedlessly; and, +finally, that I would speak to Mrs. Falchion about her. I was scarcely +prepared for her action then. Tears came to her eyes, and she said to +me, her hand involuntarily clasping my arm: "Oh no, no! I ask you not to +speak to madame. I will sleep--I will rest. Indeed, I will. This +service is so much to me. She is most generous. It is because I am so +altogether hers, night and day, that she pays me well. And the money is +so much. It is my honour--my dead brother's honour. You are kind at +heart; you will make me strong with medicine, and I will ask God to bless +you. I could not suffer such poverty again. And then, it is my honour!" + +I felt that she would not have given way thus had not her nerves been +shaken, had she not lived so much alone, and irregularly, so far as her +own rest and comfort were concerned, and at such perpetual cost to her +energy. Mrs. Falchion, I knew, was selfish, and would not, or could not, +see that she was hard upon the girl, by such exactions as midnight +reading and loss of sleep. She demanded not merely physical but mental +energy--a complete submission of both; and when this occurred with a +sensitive, high-strung girl, she was literally feeding on another's life- +blood. If she had been told this, she, no doubt, would have been very +much surprised. + +I reassured Justine. I told her that I should say nothing directly +to Mrs. Falchion, for I saw she was afraid of unpleasantness; but I +impressed upon her that she must spare herself, or she would break down, +and extorted a promise that she would object to sitting up after midnight +to read to Mrs. Falchion. + +When this was done, she said: "But, you see, it is not madame's fault +that I am troubled." + +"I do not wish," I said, "to know any secret,--I am a doctor, not a +priest,--but if there is anything you can tell me, in which I might be +able to help you, you may command me in so far as is possible." +Candidly, I think I was too inquiring in those days. + +She smiled wistfully, and replied: "I will think of what you say so +kindly, and perhaps, some day soon, I will tell you of such trouble as +I have. But, believe me, it is no question of wrong at all, by any one +--now. The wrong is over. It is simply that a debt of honour must be +satisfied; it concerns my poor dead brother." + +"Are you going to relatives in France?" I asked. + +"No; I have no relatives, no near friends. I am alone in the world. My +mother I cannot remember; she died when I was very young. My father had +riches, but they went before he died. Still, France is home, and I must +go there." She turned her head away to the long wastes of sea. + +Little more passed between us. I advised her to come often on deck, and +mingle with the passengers; and told her that, when she pleased, I should +be glad to do any service that lay in my power. Her last words were +that, after we put into Aden, she would possibly take me at my word. + +After she had gone, I found myself wondering at my presentiment that Aden +was to be associated with critical points in the history of some of us; +and from that moment I began to connect Justine Caron with certain events +which, I felt sure, were marshalling to an unhappy conclusion. I +wondered, too, what part I should play in the development of the comedy, +tragedy, or whatever it was to be. In this connection I thought of Belle +Treherne, and of how I should appear in her eyes if that little scene +with Mrs. Falchion, now always staring me in the face, were rehearsed +before her. I came quickly to my feet, with a half-imprecation at +myself; and a verse of a crude sea-song was in my ears: + + "You can batten down cargo, live and dead, + But you can't put memory out of sight; + You can paint the full sails overhead, + But you can't make a black deed white. . . ." + +Angry, I said to myself: "It wasn't a black deed; it was foolish, it was +infatuation, it was not right, but it is common to shipboard; and I lost +my head, that was all." + +Some time later I was still at work in the dispensary, when I heard Mr. +Treherne's voice calling to me from outside. I drew back the curtain. +He was leaning on his daughter's arm, while in one hand he carried a +stick. "Ah, Doctor, Doctor," cried he, "my old enemy, sciatica, has me +in its grip, and why, in this warm climate, I can't understand. I'm +afraid I shall have to heave-to, like the 'Fulvia', and lay up for repairs. +And, by the way, I'm glad we are on our course again." He entered, and +sat down. Belle Treherne bowed to me gravely, and smiled slightly. The +smile was not peculiarly hospitable. I knew perfectly well that to +convince her of the reality of my growing admiration for her would be no +easy task; but I was determined to base my new religion of the affections +upon unassailable canons, and I felt that now I could do best by waiting +and proving myself. + +While I was arranging some medicine for Mr. Treherne, and advising him +on care against chills in a hot climate, he suddenly broke in with: "Dr. +Marmion, Captain Ascott tells me that we shall get to Aden by Tuesday +morning next. Now, I was asked by a friend of mine in London to visit +the grave of a son of his--a newspaper correspondent--who was killed in +one of the expeditions against the native tribes, and was buried in the +general cemetery at Aden. On the way out I was not able to fulfil the +commission, because we passed Aden in the night. But there will be +plenty of time to do so on Tuesday, I am told. This, however, is my +difficulty: I cannot go unless I am better, and I'm afraid there is no +such luck as that in store for me. These attacks last a week, at least. +I wish my daughter, however, to go. One of the ladies on board will go +with her--Mrs. Callendar, I believe; and I am going to be so bold as to +ask you to accompany them, if you will. I know you better than any +officer on board; and, besides, I should feel safer and better satisfied +if she went under the protection of an officer,--these barbarous places, +you know!--though, of course, it may be asking too much of you, or what +is impossible." + +I assented with pleasure. Belle Treherne was looking at the Latin names +on the bottles at the time, and her face showed no expression either of +pleasure or displeasure. Mr. Treherne said bluffly: "Dr. Marmion, you +are kind--very kind, and, upon my word, I'm much obliged." He then +looked at his daughter as if expecting her to speak. + +She looked up and said conventionally: "You are very kind, Dr. Marmion, +and I am much obliged." Then I thought her eyes twinkled with amusement +at her own paraphrase of her father's speech, and she added: "Mrs. +Callendar and myself will be much honoured indeed, and feel very +important in having an officer to attend us. Of course everybody else +will be envious, and, again of course, that will add to our vanity." + +At this she would have gone; but her father, who was suffering just +enough pain to enjoy anything that would divert his attention from it, +fell into conversation upon a subject of mutual interest, in which his +daughter joined on occasion, but not with enthusiasm. Yet, when they +came to go, she turned and said kindly, almost softly, as her fingers +touched mine: "I almost envy you your profession, Dr. Marmion. It opens +doors to so much of humanity and life." + +"There is no sin," I laughingly said, "in such a covetousness, and, +believe me, it can do no harm to me, at least." Then I added gravely: +"I should like my profession, in so far as I am concerned, to be worth +your envy." She had passed through the door before the last words were +said, but I saw that her look was not forbidding. + + ......................... + +Is there unhappiness anywhere? There is not a vexing toss of the sea, +not a cloud in the sky. Is not catastrophe dead, and the arrows of +tragedy spilled? Peace broadens into deep, perfumed dusk towards Arabia; +languor spreads towards the unknown lands of the farthest south. No +anxious soul leans out from the casement of life; the time is heavy with +delightful ease. There is no sound that troubles; the world goes by and +no one heeds; for it is all beyond this musky twilight and this pleasant +hour. In this palace on the sea Mirth trails in and out with airy and +harmonious footsteps. Even the clang-clang of eight bells has music--not +boisterous nor disturbing, but muffled in the velvety air. Then, through +this hemisphere of jocund quiet, there sounds the "All's well" of the +watch. + +But, look! Did you see a star fall just then, and the long avenue of +expiring flame behind it?--Do not shudder; it is nothing. No cry of pain +came through that brightness. There was only the "All's well" from the +watchers. + +The thud of the engines falls on a padded atmosphere, and the lascars +move like ghosts along the decks. The long, smooth promenade is canopied +and curtained, and hung with banners, and gay devices of the gorgeous +East are contributing to the federation of pleasure. + +And now, through a festooned doorway, there come the people of many lands +to inhabit the gay court. Music follows their footsteps: Hamlet and +Esther; Caractacus and Iphigenia; Napoleon and Hermione; The Man in the +Iron Mask and Sappho; Garibaldi and Boadicea; an Arab sheikh and Joan of +Arc; Mahomet and Casablanca; Cleopatra and Hannibal--a resurrected world. +But the illusion is short and slight. This world is very sordid--of +shreds and patches, after all. It is but a pretty masquerade, in which +feminine vanity beats hard against strangely-clothed bosoms; and +masculine conceit is shown in the work of the barber's curling-irons and +the ship-carpenter's wooden swords and paper helmets. The pride of these +folk is not diminished because Hamlet's wig gets awry, or a Roman has +trouble with his foolish garters. Few men or women can resist mumming; +they fancy themselves as somebody else, dead or living. Yet these seem +happy in this nonsense. The indolent days appear to have deadened +hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. They shall strut and fret +their hour upon this little stage. Let that sprightly girl forget the +sudden death which made her an orphan; the nervous broker his faithless +wife; the grey-haired soldier his silly and haunting sins; the bankrupt +his creditors. + +"On with the dance, let joy be unconfined!" For the captain is on the +bridge, the engineer is beneath; we have stout walls, and a ceaseless +sentry-go. In the intervals of the dance wine passes, and idle things +are said beside the draped and cushioned capstan or in the friendly gloom +of a boat, which, in the name of safety, hangs taut between its davits. +Let this imitation Cleopatra use the Cleopatra's arts; this mellow Romeo +(sometime an Irish landlord) vow to this coy Juliet; this Helen of Troy-- +Of all who walked these decks, mantled and wigged in characters not their +own, Mrs. Falchion was the handsomest, most convincing. With a graceful +swaying movement she passed along the promenade, and even envy praised +her. Her hand lay lightly on the arm of a brown stalwart native of the +Indian hills, fierce and savage in attire. Against his wild +picturesqueness and brawny strength, her perfectness of animal beauty, +curbed and rendered delicate by her inner coldness, showed in fine +contrast; and yet both were matched in the fine natural prowess of form. + +With a singular affirmation of what had been, after all, but a sadly- +humourous proposal, I had attired myself in a Greek costume--quickly made +by my steward, who had been a tailor--and was about to leave my cabin, +when Hungerford entered, and exclaimed, as he took his pipe from his +mouth in surprise: "Marmion, what does this mean? Don't you know your +duties better? No officer may appear at these flare-ups in costume other +than his uniform. You're the finest example of suburban innocence and +original sin I've seen this last quarter of a century, wherein I've kept +the world--and you--from tottering to destruction." He reached for one +of my cigars. + +Without a word, and annoyed at my own stupidity, I slowly divested myself +of the clothes of Greece; while Hungerford smoked on, humming to himself +occasionally a few bars of The Buccaneer's Bride, but evidently occupied +with something in his mind. At length he said: "Marmion, I said suburban +innocence and original sin, but you've a grip on the law of square and +compass too. I'll say that for you, old chap--and I hope you don't think +I'm a miserable prig." + +Still I replied nothing, but offered him one of my best cigars, taking +the other one from him, and held the match while he lighted it--which, +between men, is sufficient evidence of good-feeling. He understood, and +continued: "Of course you'll keep your eye on Mrs. Falchion and Madras +to-night: if he is determined that they shall meet, and you have arranged +it. I'd like to know how it goes before you turn in, if you don't mind. +And, I say, Marmion, ask Miss Treherne to keep a dance for me--a waltz-- +towards the close of the evening, will you? Excuse me, but she is the +thorough-bred of the ship. And if I have only one hop down the +promenade, I want it to be with a girl who'll remind me of some one that +is making West Kensington worth inhabiting. Only think, Marmion, of a +girl like her--a graduate in arts, whose name and picture have been in +all the papers--being willing to make up with me, Dick Hungerford! She +is as natural and simple as a girl can be, and doesn't throw Greek roots +at you, nor try to convince you of the difference between the songs of +the troubadours and the sonnets of Petrarch. She doesn't care a rap +whether Dante's Beatrice was a real woman or a principle; whether James +the First poisoned his son; or what's the margin between a sine and a +cosine. She can take a fence in the hunting-field like a bird--! Oh, +all right, just hold still, and I'll unfasten it." And he struggled with +a recalcitrant buckle. "Well, you'll not forget about Miss Treherne, +will you? She ought to go just as she is. Fancy-dress on her would be +gilding the gold; for, though she isn't surpassingly beautiful, she is +very fine, very fine indeed. There, now, you're yourself again, and look +all the better for it." + +By this time I was again in my uniform, and I sat down, and smoked, and +looked at Hungerford. His long gossip had been more or less detached, +and I had said nothing. I understood that he was trying, in his blunt, +honest way, to turn my thoughts definitely from Mrs. Falchion to Belle +Treherne; and he never seemed to me such a good fellow as at that moment. +I replied at last: "All right, Hungerford; I'll be your deputation, your +ambassador, to Miss Treherne. What time shall we see you on deck?" + +"About 11.40--just in time to trip a waltz on the edge of eight bells." + +"On the edge of Sunday, my boy." + +"Yes. Do you know, it is just four years ago tomorrow since I found Boyd +Madras on the No Man's Sea?" + +"Let us not talk of it," said I. + +"All right. I merely stated the fact because it came to me. I'm mum +henceforth. And I want to talk about something else. The first +officer,--I don't know whether you have noticed him lately, but I tell +you this: if we ever get into any trouble with this ship he'll go to +pieces. Why, the other night, when the engine got tangled, he was as +timid as a woman. That shock he had with the coal, as I said before, +has broken his nerve, big man as he is." + +"Hungerford," I said, "you do not generally croak, but you are earning +the character of the raven for yourself to-night. The thing is growing +on you. What IS the use of bringing up unpleasant subjects? You are an +old woman." I fear there was the slightest irritation in my voice; but, +truth is, the last few days' experiences had left their mark on me, and +Hungerford's speech and manner had suddenly grown trying. + +He stood for a moment looking at me with direct earnestness from under +his strong brows, and then he stepped forward, and, laying his hand upon +my arm, rejoined: "Do not be raw, Marmion. I'm only a blunt, stupid +sailor; and, to tell you God's truth, as I have told you before, every +sailor is superstitious--every real sailor. He can't help it--I can't. +I have a special fit on me now. Why don't I keep it to myself? Because +I'm selfish, and it does me good to talk. You and I are in one secret +together, and it has made me feel like sharing this thing with a pal, I +suppose." + +I seized his hand and begged his pardon, and called myself unpleasant +names, which he on the instant stopped, and said: "That's all right, +Marmy; shake till the knuckles crack! I'm off. Don't forget the dance." +He disappeared down the passage. + +Then I went on deck, and the scene which I have so imperfectly described +passed before me. Mrs. Falchion was surrounded with admirers all the +evening, both men and women; and two of the very stately English ladies +of title, to whom I before referred, were particularly gracious to her; +while she, in turn, bore herself with becoming dignity. I danced with +her once, and was down on her programme for another dance. I had also +danced with Belle Treherne, who appeared as Miriam, and was chaperoned by +one of the ladies of title; and I had also "sat out" one dance with her. +Chancing to pass her as the evening wore on, I saw her in conversation +with Mrs. Falchion, who had dismissed her cavalier, preferring to talk, +she said, for dancing was tiresome work on the Indian Ocean. Belle +Treherne, who up to that moment had never quite liked her, yielded to the +agreeable charm of her conversation and her frank applausive remarks upon +the costumes of the dancers. She had a good word for every one, and she +drew her companion out to make the most of herself, as women less often +do before women than in the presence of men. I am certain that her +interest in Belle Treherne was real, and likewise certain that she +cherished no pique against her because I had transferred my allegiance. +Indeed, I am sure that she had no deep feeling of injured pride where I +was concerned. Such after acidity as she sometimes showed was directed +against the foolish part I had played with her and my action in +subsequent events; it did not proceed from personal feeling or self- +value. + +Some time after this meeting I saw Boyd Madras issue from the companion- +way dressed as a Greek. He wore a false beard, and carried off well his +garments of white and scarlet and gold--a very striking and presentable +man. He came slowly forward, looking about him steadily, and, seeing me, +moved towards me. But for his manner I should scarcely have recognised +him. A dance was beginning; but many eyes were turned curiously, and +even admiringly, to him; for he looked singular and impressive and his +face was given fulness by a beard and flesh paints. I motioned him aside +where there was shadow, and said: "Well, you have determined to see her?" + +"Yes," he said; "and I wish you, if you will, to introduce me to her as +Mr. Charles Boyd. + +"You still think this wise?" I asked. + +"It is my earnest wish. I must have an understanding to-night." +He spoke very firmly, and showed no excitement. His manner was calm +and gentlemanly. + +He had a surprising air of decision. Supporting an antique character, he +seemed for the moment to have put on also something of antique strength +of mind, and to be no longer the timid invalid. "Then, come with me," I +answered. + +We walked in silence for a few minutes, and then, seeing where Mrs. +Falchion was, we advanced to her. The next dance on her programme was +mine. In my previous dance with her we had talked as we now did at +table--as we did the first hour I met her--impersonally, sometimes (I am +bold to say) amusingly. Now I approached her with apologies for being +late. The man beside her took his leave. She had only just glanced at +me at first, but now she looked at my companion, and the look stayed, +curious, bewildered. + +"It is fitting," I said, "that Greek meet Greek--that Menelaus should be +introduced to Helen. May I say that when Helen is not Helen she is Mrs. +Falchion, and when Menelaus is not Menelaus he is--Mr. Charles Boyd." + +I am afraid my voice faltered slightly, because there came over me +suddenly a nervousness as unexpected as it was inconvenient, and my +words, which began lightly, ended huskily. Had Madras miscalculated this +woman? + +Her eyes were afire, and her face was as pale as marble; all its slight +but healthy glow had fled. A very faint gasp came from her lips. I saw +that she recognised him, as he bowed and mentioned her name, following my +introduction. I knew not what might occur, for I saw danger in her eyes +in reply to the beseeching look in his. Would melodrama supervene after +all? She merely bowed towards me, as if to dismiss me, and then she +rose, took his arm, and moved away. The interview that follows came to +me from Boyd Madras afterwards. + +When they had reached the semi-darkness of the forward part of the ship, +she drew her hand quickly away, and, turning to him, said: "What is the +name by which you are called? One does not always hear distinctly when +being introduced." + +He did not understand what she was about to do, but he felt the deadly +coldness in her voice. "My name is known to you," he replied. He +steadied himself. + +"No, pardon me, I do not know it, for I do not know you. . . . I +never saw you before." She leaned her hand carelessly on the bulwarks. + +He was shocked, but he drew himself together. Their eyes were intent on +each other. "You do know me! Need I tell you that I am Boyd Madras?" +"Boyd Madras," she said, musing coldly. "A peculiar name." + +"Mercy Madras was your name until you called yourself Mrs. Falchion," he +urged indignantly, yet anxiously too. + +"It suits you to be mysterious, Mr.--ah yes, Mr. Boyd Madras; but, +really, you might be less exacting in your demands upon one's +imagination." Her look was again on him casually. + +He spoke breathlessly. "Mercy--Mercy--for God's sake, don't treat me +like this! Oh, my wife, I have wronged you every way, but I loved you +always--love you now. I have only followed you to ask you to forgive me, +after all these years. I saw you in Colombo just before you came on +board, and I felt that I must come also. You never loved me. Perhaps +that is better for you, but you do not know what I suffer. If you could +give me a chance, and come with me to America--anywhere, and let me start +the world again? I can--travel straight now, and I will work hard, and be +honest. I will--" But here sudden pain brought back the doubt concerning +his life and its possibilities. + +He leaned against the bulwarks, and made a helpless, despairing motion +with his hand. "No, no!" he said; and added with a bitter laugh: "Not +to begin the world again, but to end it as profitably and silently as I +can. . . . But you will listen to me, my wife? You will say at least +that you forgive me the blight and ill I brought upon you?" + +She had listened to him unmoved outwardly. Her reply was instant. "You +are more melodramatic than I thought you capable of being--from your +appearance," she said in a hard tone. "Your acting is very good, but not +convincing. I cannot respond as would become the unity and sequence of +the play. . . . I have no husband. My husband is dead--I buried him +years ago. I have forgotten his name--I buried that too." + +All the suffering and endured scorn of years came to revolt in him. He +leaned forward now, and caught her wrist. "Have you no human feeling?" +he said "no heart in you at all? Look. I have it in me here suddenly to +kill you as you stand. You have turned my love to hate. From your +smooth skin there I could strip those rags, and call upon them all to +look at you--my wife--a felon's wife; mine to have and to hold--to hold, +you hear!--as it was sworn at the altar. I bare my heart to you, +repenting, and you mock it, torture it, with your undying hate and +cruelty. You have no heart, no life. This white bosom is all of you +--all of your power to make men love you--this, and your beauty. All +else, by God, is cruel as the grave!" + +His voice had sunk to a hoarse whisper. She had not sought to remove his +hand, nor struggled in the least; and once it seemed as if this new +development of his character, this animal fierceness, would conquer her: +she admired courage. It was not so. He trembled with weakness before he +had finished. He stopped too soon; he lost. + +"You will find such parts exhausting to play," she murmured, as he let +her arm fall. "It needs a strong physique to endure exaggerated, nervous +sentiment. And now, please, let us perform less trying scenes." Then, +with a low, cold anger, she continued: "It is only a coward that will dog +a woman who finds his presence insupportable to her. This woman cannot, +if she would, endure this man's presence; it is her nature. Well, why +rush blindly at the impossible? She wishes to live her spoiled life +alone. The man can have no part in it--never, never! But she has money. +If in that way--" + +He stretched out his hand protestingly, the fingers spread in excitement. +"No more--not another word!" he said. "I ask for forgiveness, for one +word of kindness--and I am offered money! the fire that burned me to eat, +instead of bread! I had a wife once," he added in a kind of troubled +dream, looking at her as if she were very far away, "and her name was +Mercy--her name was Mercy--Mercy Madras. I loved her. I sinned for her +sake. A message came that she was dead to me; but I could not believe +that it was so altogether, for I had knelt at her feet and worshipped +her. I went to her, but she sent me away angrily. Years passed. 'She +will have relented now,' I said, and I followed her, and found her as I +thought. But it was not she; it was a wicked ghost in her beautiful +body--nothing more. And then I turned away and cursed all things, +because I knew that I should never see my wife again. Mercy Madras +was dead. . . . Can you not hear the curses?" + +Still she was unmoved. She said with a cruel impatience in her voice: +"Yes, Mercy Madras is dead. How then can she forgive? What could her +ghost--as you call her--do, but offer the thing which her husband--when +he was living--loved so well that he sold himself into bondage, and +wrecked his world and hers for it--Money? Well, money is at his +disposal, as she said before--" + +But she spoke no more. The man in him straight way shamed her into +silence with a look. She bowed her head, yet not quite in shame, for +there was that in her eyes which made her appear as if his suffering was +a gratuitous infliction. But at this moment he was stronger, and he drew +her eyes up by the sheer force of his will. "I need no money now," he +coldly declared. "I need nothing--not even you; and can you fancy that, +after waiting all these years for this hour, money would satisfy me? +Do you know," he continued slowly and musingly, "I can look upon you now +--yes, at this moment--with more indifference than you ever showed to me? +A moment ago I loved you: now I think you horrible; because you are no +woman; you have a savage heart. And some day you will suffer as I do, so +terribly that even the brazen serpent could not cure you. Then you will +remember me." + +He was about to leave her, but he had not taken two steps before he +turned, with all the anger and the passion softened in his eyes, and +said, putting his hand out towards yet not to touch her, "Good-bye--for +the last time." And then the look was such as might be turned upon a +forgiven executioner. + +"Good-night," she replied, and she did not look into his eyes, but out to +sea. Her eyes remained fixed upon its furtive gloom. She too was +furtive and gloomy at this moment. They were both sleek, silent, and +remorseless. There was a slight rustle to her dress as she changed her +position. It was in grim keeping with the pitiless rustle of the sea. + +And so they parted. I saw him move on towards the companion-way, and +though I felt instinctively that all had gone ill with him, I was +surprised to see how erect he walked. After a minute I approached her. +She heard me coming, and presently turned to me with a curious smile. +"Who is Mr. Charles Boyd?" she asked. "I did not pierce his disguise. +I could not tell whether I had met him on board before. Have I? But my +impression is that I had not seen him on the ship." + +"No, you had not seen him," I replied. "He had a fancy to travel, until +yesterday, with the second-class passengers. Now he has a first-class +cabin--in his proper place, in fact." + +"You think so--in his proper place?" The suggestion was not pleasant. + +"Assuredly. Why do you speak in that way?" was my indignant reply. + +She took my arm as we moved on. "Because he was slightly rude to me." + +I grew bold, and determined to bring her to some sort of reckoning. + +"How rude were you to him?" + +"Not rude at all. It is not worth while being so--to anybody," was her +chilly answer. + +"I was under the impression you had met him before," I said gravely. + +"Indeed? And why?" She raised her eyebrows at me. I pushed the matter +to a conclusion. "He was ill the other day--he has heart trouble. It +was necessary for me to open the clothes about his neck. On his breast +I saw a little ivory portrait of a woman's head." + +"A woman's head," she repeated absently, and her fingers idly toyed with +a jingling ornament in her belt. In an idle moment I had sketched the +head, as I remembered it, on a sheet of paper, and now I took it from my +pocket and handed it to her. We were standing near a port-hole of the +music saloon, from which light streamed. + +"That is the head," said I. + +She deliberately placed the paper in the belt of light, and, looking at +it, remarked mechanically: "This is the head, is it?" She showed no +change of countenance, and handed it back to me as if she had seen no +likeness. "It is very interesting," she said, "but one would think you +might make better use of your time than by surreptitiously sketching +portraits from sick men's breasts. One must have plenty of leisure to do +that sort of thing, I should think. Be careful that you do not get into +mischief, Dr. Marmion." She laughed. "Besides, where was the special +peculiarity in that portrait that you should treasure it in pencil so +conventionally?--Your drawing is not good.--Where was the point or need?" + +"I have no right to reply to that directly," I responded. "But this +man's life is not for always, and if anything happened to him it would +seem curious to strangers to find that on his breast--because, of course, +more than I would see it there." + +"If anything happened? What should happen? You mean, on board ship?" +There was a little nervousness in her tone now. + +"I am only hinting at an awkward possibility," I replied. + +She looked at me scornfully. "When did you see that picture on his +breast?" I told her. "Ah! before THAT day?" she rejoined. I knew +that she referred to the evening when I had yielded foolishly to the +fascination of her presence. The blood swam hotly in my face. "Men are +not noble creatures," she continued. + +"I am afraid you would not give many their patents of nobility if you had +power to bestow them," I answered. + +"Most men at the beginning, and very often ever after, are ignoble +creatures. Yet I should confer the patents of nobility, if it were my +prerogative; for some would succeed in living up to them. Vanity would +accomplish that much. Vanity is the secret of noblesse oblige; not +radical virtue--since we are beginning to be bookish again." + +"To what do you reduce honour and right?" returned I. + +"As I said to you on a memorable occasion," she answered very drily, "to +a code." + +"That is," rejoined I, "a man does a good action, lives an honourable +life, to satisfy a social canon--to gratify, say, a wife or mother, who +believes in him, and loves him?" + +"Yes." She was watching Belle Treherne promenading with her father. She +drew my attention to it by a slight motion of the hand, but why I could +not tell. + +"But might not a man fall by the same rule of vanity?" I urged. "That +he shall appear well in their eyes, that their vanity in turn should be +fed, might he not commit a crime, and so bring misery?" + +"Yes, it is true either way--pleasure or misery. Please come to the +saloon and get me an ice before the next dance." + +I was perplexed. Was she altogether soulless? Even now, as we passed +among the dancers, she replied to congratulations on her make-up and +appearance with evident pleasure. + +An hour later, I was taking Belle Treherne from the arm of Hungerford for +the last waltz, and, in reply to an inquiring glance from him, I shook my +head mournfully. His face showed solicitude as he walked away. Perhaps +it did not gratify my vanity that Belle Treherne, as her father limped +forward at the stroke of eight bells to take her below, said to me: "How +downright and thorough Mr. Hungerford is!" But I frankly admitted that +he was all she might say good of him, and more. + +The deck was quickly dismantled, the lights went out, and all the dancers +disappeared. The masquerade was over; and again, through the darkness, +rose the plaintive "All's well!" And it kept ringing in my ears until it +became a mocking sound, from which I longed to be free. It was like the +voice of Lear crying over the body of Cordelia: "Never, never, never, +never, never!" + +Something of Hungerford's superstitious feeling possessed me. I went +below, and involuntarily made my way to Boyd Madras's cabin. + +Though the night was not hot, the door was drawn to. I tapped. His +voice at once asked who was there, and when I told him, and inquired how +he was, he said he was not ill, and asked me to come to his cabin in the +morning, if I would. I promised, and bade him good-night. He responded, +and then, as I turned away from the door, I heard him repeat the good- +night cordially and calmly. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE WHEEL COMES FULL CIRCLE + +The next morning I was up early, and went on deck. The sun had risen, +and in the moist atmosphere the tints of sky and sea were beautiful. +Everywhere was the warm ocean undulating lazily to the vague horizon. +A few lascars were still cleansing the decks; others were seated on their +haunches between decks, eating curry from a calabash; a couple of +passengers were indolently munching oranges; and Stone the quartermaster +was inspecting the work lately done by the lascars. Stone gave me a +pleasant good-morning, and we walked together the length of the deck +forward. I had got about three-fourths of the length back again, when I +heard a cry from aft--a sharp call of "Man overboard!" In a moment I had +travelled the intermediate deck, and was at the stern, looking below, +where, in the swirling waters, was the head of a man. With cries of "Man +overboard!" I threw two or three buoys after the disappearing head, +above which a bare arm thrust itself. I heard the rush of feet behind +me, and in a moment Hungerford and Stone were beside me. The signal was +given for the engines to stop; stewards and lascars came running on deck +in response to Hungerford's call, and the first officer now appeared. +Very soon a crew was gathered on the after-deck, about a boat on the port +side. + +Passengers by this time showed in various stages of dressing-- +women wringing their hands, men gesticulating. If there is anything +calculated to send a thrill of awe through a crowd, it is the cry of "Man +overboard!" And when one looked below, and saw above the drowning head +two white arms thrust from the sea, a horrible thing was brought home to +each of us. Besides, the scene before us on the deck was not reassuring. +There was trouble in getting the boat lowered. The first officer was +excited, the lascars were dazed, the stewards were hurried without being +confident; only Hungerford, Stone, and the gunner were collected. The +boat should have been launched in a minute, but still it hung between its +davits; its course downward was interrupted; something was wrong with the +ropes, "A false start, by --- !" said the bookmaker, looking through his +eye-glass. Colonel Ryder's face was stern, Clovelly was pale and +anxious, as moment after moment went, and the boat was not yet free. +Ages seemed to pass before the boat was let down even with the bulwarks, +and a crew of ten, with Hungerford in command, were in it, ready to be +lowered. Whether the word was given to lower, or whether it was any +one's fault, may never perhaps be known; but, as the boat hung there, +suddenly it shot down at the stern, some one having let go the ropes at +that end; and the bow being still fast, it had fallen like a trap-door. +It seemed, on the instant, as if the whole crew were tossed into the +water; but some had successfully clutched the boat's side, and Hungerford +hung by a rope with one hand. In the eddying water, however, about the +reversing screw, were two heads, and farther off was a man struggling. +The face of one of the men near the screw was upturned for a moment; it +was that of Stone the quartermaster. + +A cry went up from the passengers, and they swayed forward to the +suspended boat; but Colonel Ryder turned almost savagely upon them. +"Keep quiet!" he said. "Stand back! What can you do? Give the +officers a chance." He knew that there had been a false start, and bad +work indeed; but he also saw that the task of the officers must not be +made harder. His sternness had effect. The excited passengers drew +back, and I took his place in front of them. When the first effort had +been made to lower the boat, I asked the first officer if I could +accompany the crew, but he said no. I could, therefore, do nothing but +wait. A change came on the crowd. It became painfully silent, none +speaking save in whispers, and all watching with anxious faces either the +receding heads in the water or the unfortunate boat's crew. Hungerford +showed himself a thorough sailor. Hanging to the davit, he quietly, +reassuringly, gave the order for righting the boat, virtually taking the +command out of the hands of the first officer, who was trembling with +nervousness. Hungerford was right; this man's days as a sailor were +over. The accident from which he had suffered had broken his nerve, +stalwart as he was. But Hungerford was as cool as if this were ordinary +boat-practice. Soon the boat was drawn up again, and others took the +place of those who had disappeared. Then it was lowered safely, and, +with Hungerford erect in the bows, it was pulled swiftly along the path +we had come. + +At length, too, the great ship turned round, but not in her tracks. It +is a pleasant fiction that these great steamers are easily managed. They +can go straight ahead, but their huge proportions are not adapted for +rapid movement. However, the work of rescue was begun. Sailors were +aloft on watch, Captain Ascott was on the bridge, sweeping the sea with +his glass; order was restored. But the ship had the feeling of a home +from which some familiar inmate had been taken, to return no more. +Children clasped their mothers' hands and said, "Mother, was it the poor +quartermaster?" and men who the day before had got help from the petty +officers in the preparation of costumes, said mournfully: "Fife the +gunner was one of them." + +But who was the man first to go overboard--and who was it first gave +the alarm? There were rumours, but no one was sure. All at once I +remembered something peculiar in that cry of "Man overboard!" and it +shocked me. I hurried below, and went to the cabin of Boyd Madras. It +was empty; but on a shelf lay a large envelope, addressed to Hungerford +and myself. I tore it open. There was a small packet, which I knew +contained the portrait he had worn on his bosom, addressed to Mrs. +Falchion; and the other was a single sheet directed to me, fully written +upon, and marked in the corner: "To be made public." + +So, he had disappeared from the play? He had made his exit? He had +satisfied the code at last? Before opening the letter addressed to me, +I looked round. His clothes were folded upon one of the berths; but the +garments of masquerade were not in the cabin. Had he then gone out of +the world in the garb of a mummer? Not altogether, for the false beard +he had worn the night before lay beside the clothes. But this terrible +earnestness of his would look strange in last night's disguise. + +I opened the packet addressed to Hungerford and myself, and saw that it +contained a full and detailed account of his last meeting with his wife. +The personal letter was short. He said that his gratitude was +unspeakable, and now must be so for ever. He begged us not to let the +world know who he was, nor his relationship to Mrs. Falchion, unless she +wished it; he asked me to hand privately to her the packet bearing her +name. Lastly, he requested that the paper for the public be given to the +captain of the 'Fulvia'. + +Going out into the passage, I found a steward, who hurriedly told me that +just before the alarm was given he had seen Boyd Madras going aft in that +strange costume, which he mistook for a dressing-gown, and he had come to +see if, by any chance, it was he who had gone overboard. I told him that +it was. He disappeared, and soon the whole ship knew it. I went to the +captain, gave him the letter, and told him only what was necessary to +tell. He was on the bridge, and was occupied with giving directions, so +he asked me the substance of the letter, and handed it back to me, +requesting me to make a copy of it soon and leave it in his cabin. I +then took all the papers to my cabin, and locked them up. I give here +the substance of the letter which was to be made public: + + Because you know how much I have suffered physically while on board + this ship, and because you have been kind to me, I wish, through + you, to say my last word to the world: though, indeed, this may seem + a strange form for gratitude to take. Dying men, however, make few + apologies, and I shall make none. My existence, as you know, is an + uncertain quantity, and may be cut short at any moment in the + ordinary course of things. But I have no future in the active + concerns of life; no past on which to dwell with satisfaction; no + friends to mourn for my misfortunes in life, nor for my death, + whether it be peaceful or violent; therefore, I have fewer + compunctions in ending a mistaken career and a worthless life. + + Some one will profit by my death: who it is matters not, for it is + no friend of mine. My death adjusts a balance, perhaps not nicely, + yet it does it. And this is all I have to say. . . . I am + going. Farewell. . . . + +After a brief farewell to me added, there came the subscription "Charles +Boyd;" and that was all. Why he cried out "Man overboard" (for now I +recognised that it was his voice which gave the alarm), I do not know, +except that he wished his body to be recovered, and to receive burial. + +Just here, some one came fumbling at the curtain of my cabin. I heard a +gasp--"Doctor--my head! quick!" + +I looked out. As I drew the curtain a worthless lascar sailor fell +fainting into my cabin. He had been drinking a good deal, and the horror +and excitement of the accident had brought on an apoplectic fit. This in +a very hot climate is suddenly fatal. In three minutes, in spite of me, +he was dead. Postponing report of the matter, I went on deck again among +the passengers. + +I expected that Mrs. Falchion would be among them, for the news must have +gone to every part of the ship; but she was not there. On the outskirts +of one of the groups, however, I saw Justine Caron. I went to her, and +asked her if Mrs. Falchion had risen. She said that she had not: that +she had been told of the disaster, and had appeared shocked; but had +complained of a headache, and had not risen. I then asked Justine if +Mrs. Falchion had been told who the suicide was, and was answered in the +negative. At that moment a lady came to me and said in an awed whisper: +"Dr. Marmion, is it true that the man who committed suicide was a second- +class passenger, and that he appeared at the ball last night, and danced +with Mrs. Falchion?" + +I knew that my reply would soon become common property, so I said: + +"He was a first-class passenger, though until yesterday he travelled +second-class. I knew him. His name was Charles Boyd. I introduced him +to Mrs. Falchion last night, but he did not stay long on deck, because he +felt ill. He had heart trouble. You may guess that he was tired of +life." Then I told her of the paper which was for the public, and she +left me. + +The search for the unfortunate men went on. No one could be seen near +the floating buoys which were here and there picked up by Hungerford's +boat. The long undulations of the water had been broken up in a large +area about the ship, but the sea was still comparatively smooth. We were +steaming back along the track we had come. There was less excitement on +board than might be expected. The tropical stillness of the air, the +quiet suddenness of the tragedy itself, the grim decisiveness of +Hungerford, the watchful silence of a few men like Colonel Ryder and +Clovelly, had effect upon even the emotion of those women, everywhere +found, who get a morbid enjoyment out of misery. + +Nearly all were watching the rescue boat, though a few looked over the +sides of the ship as if they expected to find bodies floating about. +They saw sharks, instead, and a trail of blood, and this sent them away +sickened from the bulwarks. Then they turned their attention again upon +the rescue party. It was impossible not to note what a fine figure +Hungerford made, as he stood erect in the bow, his hand over his eyes, +searching the water. Presently we saw him stop the boat, and something +was drawn in. He signalled the ship. He had found one man--but dead or +alive? The boat was rapidly rowed back to the ship, Hungerford making +efforts for resuscitation. Arrived at the vessel, the body was passed up +to me. + +It was that of Stone the quartermaster. I worked to bring back life, but +it was of no avail. A minute after, a man in the yards signalled that he +saw another. It was not a hundred yards away, and was floating near the +surface. It was a strange sight, for the water was a vivid green, and +the man wore garments of white and scarlet, and looked a part of some +strange mosaic: as one has seen astonishing figures set in balls of solid +glass. This figure framed in the sea was Boyd Madras. The boat was +signalled, it drew near, and two men dragged the body in, as a shark +darted forward, just too late, to seize it. The boat drew alongside the +'Fulvia'. I stood at the gangway to receive this castaway. I felt his +wrist and heart. As I did so I chanced to glance up at the passengers, +who were looking at this painful scene from the upper deck. There, +leaning over the railing, stood Mrs. Falchion, her eyes fixed with a +shocking wonder at the drooping, weird figure. Her lips parted, but at +first they made no sound. Then, she suddenly drew herself up with a +shudder. "Horrible! horrible!" she said, and turned away. + +I had Boyd Madras taken to an empty cabin next to mine, which I used for +operations, and there Hungerford and myself worked to resuscitate him. +We allowed no one to come near. I had not much hope of bringing life +back, but still we worked with a kind of desperation, for it seemed to +Hungerford and myself that somehow we were responsible to humanity for +him. His heart had been weak, but there had been no organic trouble: +only some functional disorder, which open-air life and freedom from +anxiety might have overcome. Hungerford worked with an almost fierce +persistence. Once he said: "By God, I will bring him back, Marmion, to +face that woman down when she thinks she has got the world on the hip!" + +I cannot tell what delight we felt when, after a little time, I saw a +quiver of the eyelids and a slight motion of the chest. Presently a +longer breath came, and the eyes opened; at first without recognition. +Then, in a few moments, I knew that he was safe--desperately against his +will, but safe. + +His first sentient words startled me. He gasped, "Does she think I am +drowned?" + +"Yes." + +"Then she must continue to do so!" + +"Why?" + +"Because"--here he spoke faintly, as if sudden fear had produced +additional weakness--"because I had rather die a thousand deaths than +meet her now; because she hates me. I must begin the world again. You +have saved my life against my will: I demand that you give that life its +only chance of happiness." + +As his words came to me, I remembered with a start the dead lascar, and, +leading Hungerford to my cabin, I pointed to the body, and whispered that +the sailor's death was only known to me. "Then this is the corpse of +Boyd Madras, and we'll bury it for him," he said with quick bluntness. +"Do not report this death to Captain Ascott--he would only raise +objections to the idea. This lascar was in my watch. It will be +supposed he fell overboard during the accident to the boat. Perhaps some +day the funeral of this nigger will be a sensation and surprise to her +blessed ladyship on deck." + +I suggested that it seemed underhand and unprofessional, but the +entreating words of the resuscitated man in the next room conquered my +objections. + +It was arranged that Madras should remain in the present cabin, of which +I had a key, until we reached Aden; then he should, by Hungerford's aid, +disappear. + +We were conspirators, but we meant harm to nobody. I covered up the face +of the dead lascar and wrapped round him the scarlet and gold cloth that +Madras had worn. Then I got a sailor, who supposed Boyd Madras was +before him, and the body was soon sewed in its shotted shroud and carried +to where Stone the quartermaster lay. + +At this day I cannot suppose I would do these things, but then it seemed +right to do as Madras wished: he was, under a new name, to begin life +afresh. + +After giving directions for the disposition of the bodies, I went on +deck. Mrs. Falchion was still there. Some one said to her: "Did you +know the man who committed suicide?" + +"He was introduced to me last night by Dr. Marmion," she replied, and she +shuddered again, though her face showed no remarkable emotion. She had +had a shock to the senses, not to the heart. + +When I came to her on the deck, Justine was saying to her: "Madame, you +should not have come. You should not see such painful things when you +are not well." + +She did not reply to this. She looked up at me and said: "A strange +whim, to die in those fanciful rags. It is dreadful to see; but he had +the courage." + +I replied: "They have as much courage who make men do such things and +then live on." + +Then I told her briefly that I held the packet for her, that I guessed +what was in it, and that I would hand it to her later. I also said that +he had written to me the record of last night's meeting with her, and +that he had left a letter which was to be made public. As I said these +things we were walking the decks, and, because eyes were on both of us, +I tried to show nothing more unusual in manner than the bare tragedy +might account for. + +"Well," she said, with a curious coldness, "what use shall you make of +your special knowledge?" + +"I intend," I said, "to respect his wish, that your relationship to him +be kept unknown, unless you declare otherwise." + +"That is reasonable. If he had always been as reasonable! And," she +continued, "I do not wish the relationship to be known: practically there +is none. . . . Oh! oh!" she added, with a sudden change in her +voice, "why did he do as he did, and make everything else impossible-- +impossible! . . . Send me, or give me the packet, when you wish: and +now please leave me, Dr. Marmion." + +The last few words were spoken with some apparent feeling, but I knew she +was thinking of herself most, and I went from her angry. + +I did not see her again before the hour that afternoon when we should +give the bodies of the two men to the ocean. No shroud could be prepared +for gunner Fife and able-seaman Winter, whose bodies had no Christian +burial, but were swallowed by the eager sea, not to be yielded up even +for a few hours. We were now steaming far beyond the place where they +were lost. + +The burial was an impressive sight, as burials at sea mostly are. The +lonely waters stretching to the horizon helped to make it so. There was +a melancholy majesty in the ceremony. + +The clanging bell had stopped. Captain Ascott was in his place at the +head of the rude draped bier. In the silence one only heard the swish of +water against the 'Fulvia's' side, as we sped on towards Aden. People do +not know how beautiful, how powerful, is the burial service in the Book +of Common Prayer, who have only heard it recited by a clergyman. To hear +it read by a hardy man, whose life is among stern duties, is to receive a +new impression. He knows nothing of lethargic monotone; he interprets as +he reads. And when the man is the home-spun captain of a ship, who sees +before him the poor shell of one that served him for ten years, "The Lord +gave and the Lord hath taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord," has +a strange significance. It is only men who have borne the shock of toil +and danger, and have beaten up against the world's buffetings, that are +fit to say last words over those gone down in the storm or translated in +the fiery chariot of duty. + +The engines suddenly stopped. The effect was weird. Captain Ascott's +fingers trembled, and he paused for an instant and looked down upon the +dead, then out sorrowfully to the waiting sea, before he spoke the words, +"We therefore commit their bodies to the deep." But, the moment they +were uttered, the bier was lifted, there was a swift plunge, and only the +flag and the empty boards were left. The sobbing of women now seemed +almost unnatural; for around us was the bright sunlight, the gay dresses +of the lascars, the sound of the bell striking the hours, and children +playing on the deck. The ship moved on. + +And Mrs. Falchion? As the burial service was read, she had stood, and +looked, not at the bier, but straight out to sea, calm and apparently +unsympathetic, though, as she thought, her husband was being buried. +When, however, the weighted body divided the water with a swingeing +sound, her face suddenly suffused, as though shame had touched her or +some humiliating idea had come. But she turned to Justine almost +immediately, and soon after said calmly: "Bring a play of Moliere, and +read to me, Justine." + +I had the packet her supposed dead husband had left for her in my pocket. +I joined her, and we paced the deck, at first scarcely speaking, while +the passengers dispersed, some below, some to the smoking-rooms, some +upon deck-chairs to doze through the rest of the lazy afternoon. The +world had taken up its orderly course again. At last, in an unfrequented +corner of the deck, I took the packet from my pocket and handed it to +her. "You understand?" I asked. + +"Yes, I understand. And now, may I beg that for the rest of your natural +life"--here she paused, and bit her lip in vexation that the unlucky +phrase had escaped her--"you will speak of this no more?" + +"Mrs. Boyd Madras," I said (here she coloured indignantly),--"pardon me +for using the name, but it is only this once,--I shall never speak of the +matter to you again, nor to any one else, unless there is grave reason." + +We walked again in silence. Passing the captain's cabin, we saw a number +of gentlemen gathered about the door, while others were inside. We +paused, to find what the incident was. Captain Ascott was reading the +letter which Boyd Madras had wished to be made public. (I had given it +to him just before the burial, and he was acting as though Boyd Madras +was really dead--he was quite ignorant of our conspiracy.) I was about to +move on, but Mrs. Falchion touched my arm. "Wait," she said. She stood +and heard the letter through. Then we walked on, she musing. Presently +she said: "It is a pity--a pity." + +I looked at her inquiringly, but she offered no explanation of the +enigmatical words. But, at this moment, seeing Justine waiting, she +excused herself, and soon I saw her listening to Moliere. Later in the +day I saw her talking with Miss Treherne, and it struck me that she had +never looked so beautiful as then, and that Miss Treherne had never +seemed so perfect a product of a fine convention. But, watching them +together, one who had had any standard of good life could never have +hesitated between the two. It was plain to me that Mrs. Falchion was +bent upon making a conquest of this girl who so delicately withstood her; +and Belle Treherne has told me since, that, when in her presence, and +listening to her, she was irresistibly drawn to her; though at the same +time she saw there was some significant lack in her nature; some hardness +impossible to any one who had ever known love. She also told me that on +this occasion Mrs. Falchion did not mention my name, nor did she ever in +their acquaintance, save in the most casual fashion. Her conversation +with Miss Treherne was always far from petty gossip or that smart comedy +in which some women tell much personal history, with the guise of +badinage and bright cynicism. I confess, though, it struck me +unpleasantly at the time, that this fresh, high-hearted creature should +be in familiar conversation with a woman who, it seemed to me, was the +incarnation of cruelty. + +Mrs. Falchion subscribed most liberally to the fund raised for the +children of the quartermaster and munificently to that for the crew which +had, under Hungerford, performed the rescue work. The only effect of +this was to deepen the belief that she was very wealthy, and could spend +her money without affectation; for it was noticeable that she, of all on +board, showed the least outward excitement at the time of the disaster. +It occurred to me that once or twice I had seen her eyes fixed on +Hungerford inquisitively, and not free from antipathy. It was something +behind her usual equanimity. Her intuitive observation had led her to +trace his hand in recent events. Yet I know she admired him too for his +brave conduct. The day following the tragedy we were seated at dinner. +The captain and most of the officers had risen, but Mrs. Falchion, having +come in late, was still eating, and I remained seated also. Hungerford +approached me, apologising for the interruption. He remarked that he was +going on the bridge, and wished to say something to me before he went. +It was an official matter, to which Mrs. Falchion apparently did not +listen. When he was about to turn away, he bowed to her rather +distantly; but she looked up at him and said, with an equivocal smile: + +"Mr. Hungerford, we often respect brave men whom we do not like." + +Then he, understanding her, but refusing to recognise the compliment, not +altogether churlishly replied: "And I might say the same of women, Mrs. +Falchion; but there are many women we dislike who are not brave." + +"I think I could recognise a brave man without seeing his bravery," she +urged. + +"But I am a blundering sailor," he rejoined, "who only believes his +eyes." + +"You are young yet," she replied. + +"I shall be older to-morrow," was his retort. + +"Well, perhaps you will see better to-morrow," she rejoined, with +indolent irony. + +"If I do, I'll acknowledge it," he added. Then Hungerford smiled at me +inscrutably. We two held a strange secret. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A BRIDGE OF PERIL + +No more delightful experience may be had than to wake up in the harbour +of Aden some fine morning--it is always fine there--and get the first +impression of that mighty fortress, with its thousand iron eyes, in +strong repose by the Arabian Sea. Overhead was the cloudless sun, and +everywhere the tremulous glare of a sandy shore and the creamy wash of +the sea, like fusing opals. A tiny Mohammedan mosque stood gracefully +where the ocean almost washed its steps, and the Resident's house, far up +the hard hillside, looked down upon the harbour from a green coolness. +The place had a massive, war-like character. Here was a battery with +earthworks; there, a fort; beyond, a signal-staff. Hospitals, hotels, +and stores were incidents in the picture. Beyond the mountain-wall and +lofty Jebel Shamsan, rising in fine pink and bronze, and at the end of a +high-walled path between the great hills, lay the town of Aden proper. +Above the town again were the mighty Tanks, formed out of clefts in the +mountains, and built in the times when the Phoenicians made Aden a great +mart, the richest spot in all Arabia. + +Over to the left, on the opposite side of the harbour, were wide +bungalows shining in the sun, and flanking the side of the ancient +aqueduct, the gigantic tomb of an Arab sheikh. In the harbour were the +men-of-war of all nations, and Arab dhows sailed slowly in, laden with +pilgrims for Mecca--masses of picturesque sloth and dirt--and disease +also; for more than one vessel flew the yellow flag. As we looked, a +British man-of-war entered the gates of the harbour in the rosy light. +It was bringing back the disabled and wounded from a battle, in which a +handful of British soldiers were set to punish thirty times their number +in an unknown country. But there was another man-of-war in port with +which we were familiar. We passed it far out on the Indian Ocean. It +again passed us, and reached Aden before we did. The 'Porcupine' lay not +far from the 'Fulvia', and as I leaned over the bulwarks, idly looking at +her, a boat shot away from her side, and came towards us. As it drew +near, I saw that it was filled with luggage--a naval officer's, I knew it +to be. As the sailors hauled it up, I noticed that the initials upon the +portmanteaus were G. R. The owner was evidently an officer going home on +leave, or invalided. It did not, however, concern me, as I thought, and +I turned away to look for Mr. Treherne, that I might fulfil my promise to +escort his daughter and Mrs. Callendar to the general cemetery at Aden; +for I knew he was not fit to do the journey, and there was nothing to +prevent my going. + +A few hours later I stood with Miss Treherne and Mrs. Callendar in the +graveyard beside the fortress-wall, placing wreaths of artificial flowers +and one or two natural roses--a chance purchase from a shop at the port-- +on the grave of the young journalist. Miss Treherne had brought some +sketching materials, and both of us (for, as has been suggested, I had a +slight gift for drawing) made sketches of the burial-place. Having done +this, we moved away to other parts of the cemetery, looking at the +tombstones, many of which told sad tales enough of those who died far +away from home and friends. As we wandered on, I noticed a woman +kneeling beside a grave. It grew upon me that the figure was familiar. +Presently I saw who it was, for the face lifted. I excused myself, went +over to her, and said:--"Miss Caron, you are in trouble?" + +She looked up, her eyes swimming with tears and pointed to the tombstone. +On it I read: + + Sacred to the Memory of + HECTOR CARON, + Ensign in the French Navy. + + Erected by his friend, Galt Roscoe, + H.B.M.N. + +Beneath this was the simple line: + + "Why, what evil hath he done?" + +"He was your brother?" I asked. + +"Yes, monsieur, my one brother." Her tears dropped slowly. + +"And Galt Roscoe, who was he?" asked I. + +Through her grief her face was eloquent. "I never saw him--never knew +him," she said. "He saved my poor Hector from much suffering; he nursed +him, and buried him here when he died, and then--that!" pointing to the +tombstone. "He made me love the English," she said. "Some day I shall +find him, and I shall have money to pay him back all he spent--all." Now +I guessed the meaning of the scene on board the 'Fulvia', when she had been +so anxious to preserve her present relations with Mrs. Falchion. This +was the secret--a beautiful one. She rose. "They disgraced Hector in +New Caledonia," she said, "because he refused to punish a convict at Ile +Nou who did not deserve it. He determined to go to France to represent +his case. He left me behind, because we were poor. He went to Sydney. +There he came to know this good man,"--her finger gently felt his name +upon the stone,--"who made him a guest upon his ship; and so he came on +towards England. In the Indian Ocean he was taken ill: and this was the +end." + +She mournfully sank again beside the grave, but she was no longer +weeping. + +"What was this officer's vessel?" I said presently. She drew from her +dress a letter. "It is here. Please read it all. He wrote that to me +when Hector died." + +The superscription to the letter was--H.B.M.S. Porcupine. + +I might have told her then that the 'Porcupine' was in the +harbour at Aden, but I felt that things would work out to due ends +without my help--which, indeed, they began to do immediately. As we +stood there in silence, I reading over and over again the line upon the +pedestal, I heard footsteps behind, and, turning, I saw a man approaching +us, who, from his manner, though he was dressed in civilian's clothes, I +guessed to be an officer of the navy. He was of more than middle height, +had black hair, dark blue eyes, straight, strongly-marked brows, and was +clean-shaven. He was a little ascetic-looking, and rather interesting +and uncommon, and yet he was unmistakably a sea-going man. It was a face +that one would turn to look at again and again--a singular personality. +And yet my first glance told me that he was not one who had seen much +happiness. Perhaps that was not unattractive in itself, since people who +are very happy, and show it, are often most selfish too, and repel where +they should attract. He was now standing near the grave, and his eyes +were turned from one to the other of us, at last resting on Justine. + +Presently I saw a look of recognition. He stepped quickly forward. +"Mademoiselle, will you pardon me?" he said very gently, "but you remind +me of one whose grave I came to see." His hand made a slight motion +toward Hector Caron's resting-place. Her eyes were on him with an +inquiring earnestness. "Oh, monsieur, is it possible that you are my +brother's friend and rescuer?" + +"I am Roscoe. He was my good friend," he said to her, and he held out +his hand. She took it, and kissed it impulsively. He flushed, and drew +it back quickly and shyly. + +"Some day I shall be able to repay you for all your goodness," she said. +"I am only grateful now--grateful altogether. And you will tell me all +you knew of him--all that he said and did before he died?" + +"I will gladly tell you all I know," he answered, and he looked at her +compassionately, and yet with a little scrutiny, as though to know more +of her and how she came to be in Aden. He turned to me inquiringly. + +I interpreted his thought by saying: "I am the surgeon of the 'Fulvia'. +I chanced upon Miss Caron here. She is travelling by the 'Fulvia'." + +With a faint voice, Justine here said: "Travelling--with my mistress." + +"As companion to a lady," I preferred to add in explanation, for I wished +not to see her humble herself so. A look of understanding came into +Roscoe's face. Then he said: "I am glad that I shall see more of you; I +am to travel by the 'Fulvia' also to London." + +"Yet I am afraid I shall see very little of you," she quietly replied. + +He was about to say something to her, but she suddenly swayed and would +have fallen, but that he caught her and supported her. The weakness +lasted only for a moment, and then, steadying herself, she said to both +of us: "I hope you will say nothing of this to madame? She is kind, most +kind, but she hates illness--and such things." + +Galt Roscoe looked at me to reply, his face showing clearly that he +thought "madame" an extraordinary woman. I assured Justine that we would +say nothing. Then Roscoe cordially parted from us, saying that he would +look forward to seeing us both on the ship; but before he finally went, +he put on the grave a small bouquet from his buttonhole. Then I excused +myself from Justine, and, going over to Miss Treherne, explained to her +the circumstances, and asked her if she would go and speak to the +afflicted girl. She and Mrs. Callendar had been watching the incident, +and they eagerly listened to me. I think this was the moment that I +first stood really well with Belle Treherne. Her sympathy for the +bereaved girl flooded many barriers between herself and me. + +"Oh," she said quickly, "indeed I will go to her, poor girl! Will you +come also, Mrs. Callendar?" + +But Mrs. Callendar timidly said she would rather Miss Treherne went +without her; and so it was. While Miss Treherne was comforting the +bereaved girl, I talked to Mrs. Callendar. I fear that Mrs. Callendar +was but a shallow woman; for, after a moment of excitable interest in +Justine, she rather naively turned the talk upon the charms of Europe. +And, I fear, not without some slight cynicism, I followed her where she +led; for, as I said to myself, it did not matter what direction our idle +tongues took, so long as I kept my mind upon the two beside that grave: +but it gave my speech a spice of malice. I dwelt upon Mrs. Callendar's +return to her native heath--that is, the pavements of Bond Street and +Piccadilly, although I knew that she was a native of Tasmania. At this +she smiled egregiously. + +At length Miss Treherne came to us and said that Justine insisted she +was well enough to go back to the vessel alone, and wished not to be +accompanied. So we left her there. + +A score of times I have stopped when preparing my notes for this tale +from my diary and those of Mrs. Falchion and Galt Roscoe, to think how, +all through the events recorded here, and many others omitted, Justine +Caron was like those devoted and, often, beautiful attendants of the +heroes and heroines of tragedy, who, when all is over, close the eyes, +compose the bodies, and cover the faces of the dead, pronouncing with +just lips the benediction, fittest in their mouths. Their loves, their +deeds, their lives, however good and worthy, were clothed in modesty and +kept far up the stage, to be, even when everything was over, not always +given the privilege to die as did their masters, but, like Horatio, bade +to live and be still the loyal servant: + + "But in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, + To tell my story." + +There was no reason why we should go to the ship immediately, and I +proposed that we should first explore the port-town, and then visit the +city of Aden--five miles away beyond the hills--and the Tanks. To this +the ladies consented. + +Somauli policemen patrolled the streets; Somauli, Arab, and Turkish +guides impeded the way; Arabs in plain white, Arab sheikhs in blue and +white, and gold, lounged languidly about, or drank their coffee in the +shade of the bazaars. Children of the desert, nearly naked, sprinkled +water before the doors of the bazaars and stores and upon the hot +thoroughfare, from long leather bottles; caravans of camels, with dusty +stride, swung up the hillside and beyond into the desert; the Jewish +water-carrier with his donkey trudged down the pass from the cool +fountains in the volcanic hills; a guard of eunuchs marched by with the +harem of a Mohammedan; in the doorways of the houses goats and donkeys +fed. Jews, with greasy faces, red-hemmed skirt, and hungry look, moved +about, offering ostrich feathers for sale, everywhere treated worse than +the Chinaman in Oregon or at Port Darwin. We saw English and Australian +passengers of the 'Fulvia' pelting the miserable members of a despised race +with green fruit about the streets, and afterwards from the deck of the +ship. A number of these raised their hats to us as they passed; but +Belle Treherne's acknowledgment was chilly. + +"It is hard to be polite to cowards," she said. + +After having made some ruinous bargains in fezes, Turkish cloths and +perfume, I engaged a trap, and we started for Aden. The journey was not +one of beauty, but it had singular interest. Every turn of the wheels +carried us farther and farther away from a familiar world to one of +yesterday. White-robed warriors of the desert, with lances, bent their +brows upon us as they rode away towards the endless sands, and vagabonds +of Egypt begged for alms. In about three-quarters of an hour we had +passed the lofty barriers of Jebel Shamsan and its comrades, and were +making clouds of dust in the streets of Aden. In spite of the +cantonments, the British Government House, and the European Church, it +was an Oriental town pure and simple, where the slow-footed hours +wandered by, leaving apathy in their train; where sloth and surfeit sat +in the market-places; idle women gossiped in their doorways; and naked +children rolled in the sun. Yet how, in the most unfamiliar places, does +one wake suddenly to hear or see some most familiar thing, and learn +again that the ways of all people and nations are not, after all, so far +apart! Here three naked youths, with trays upon their heads, cried aloud +at each doorway what, interpreted, was: "Pies! Hot pies! Pies all hot!" +or, "Crum-pet! Crumpet! Won't you buy-uy a crum-pet!" + +One sees the same thing in Kandy, in Calcutta, in Tokio, in Istamboul, in +Teheran, in Queensland, in London. + +To us the great Tanks overlooking the place were more interesting than +the town itself, and we drove thither. At Government House and here were +the only bits of green that we had seen; they were, in fact, the only +spots of verdure on the peninsula of Aden. It was a very sickly green, +from which wan and dusty fig trees rose. In their scant shadow, or in +the shelter of an overhanging ledge of rock, Arabs offered us draughts +of cool water, and oranges. There were people in the sickly gardens, and +others were inspecting the Tanks. Passengers from the ship had brought +luncheon-baskets to this sad oasis. + +As we stood at the edge of one of the Tanks, Miss Treherne remarked with +astonishment that they were empty. I explained to her that Aden did not +have the benefits conferred even on the land of the seven fat and seven +lean kine--that there had not been rain there for years, and that when it +did come it was neither prolonged nor plentiful. Then came questions as +to how long ago the Tanks were built. + +"Thirteen hundred years!" she exclaimed. "How strange to feel it so! +It is like looking at old graves. And how high the walls are, closing up +the gorge between the hills." + +At that moment Mrs. Callendar drew our attention to Mrs. Falchion and a +party from the ship. Mrs. Falchion was but a few paces from us, smiling +agreeably as she acknowledged our greetings. Presently two of her party +came to us and asked us to share their lunch. I would have objected, and +I am certain Belle Treherne would gladly have done so, but Mrs. Callendar +was anxious to accept, therefore we expressed our gratitude and joined +the group. On second thoughts I was glad that we did so, because, +otherwise, my party must have been without refreshments until they +returned to the ship--the restaurants at Aden are not to be trusted. To +me Mrs. Falchion was pleasantly impersonal, to Miss Treherne delicately +and actively personal. At the time I had a kind of fear of her interest +in the girl, but I know now that it was quite sincere, though it began +with a motive not very lofty--to make Belle Treherne her friend, and so +annoy me, and also to study, as would an anatomist, the girl's life. + +We all moved into the illusive shade of the fig and magnolia trees, and +lunch was soon spread. As we ate, conversation turned upon the annoying +persistency of Eastern guides, and reference was made to the exciting +circumstances attending the engagement of Amshar, the guide of Mrs. +Falchion's party. Among a score of claimants, Amshar had had one +particular opponent--a personal enemy--who would not desist even when +the choice had been made. He, indeed, had been the first to solicit the +party, and was rejected because of his disagreeable looks. He had even +followed the trap from the Port of Aden. As one of the gentlemen was +remarking on the muttered anger of the disappointed Arab, Mrs. Falchion. +said: "There he is now at the gate of the garden." + +His look was sullenly turned upon our party. Blackburn, the Queenslander +said, "Amshar, the other fellow is following up the game," and pointed to +the gate. + +Amshar understood the gesture at least, and though he gave a toss of the +head, I noticed that his hand trembled as he handed me a cup of water, +and that he kept his eyes turned on his opponent. + +"One always feels unsafe with these cut-throat races," said Colonel +Ryder, "as some of us know, who have had to deal with the nigger of South +America. They think no more of killing a man--" + +"Than an Australian squatter does of dispersing a mob of aboriginals or +kangaroos," said Clovelly. + +Here Mrs. Callendar spoke up briskly. "I don't know what you mean by +'dispersing.'" + +"You know what a kangaroo battue is, don't you?" + +"But that is killing, slaughtering kangaroos by the hundred." + +"Well, and that is aboriginal dispersion," said the novelist. "That is +the aristocratic method of legislating the native out of existence." + +Blackburn here vigorously protested. "Yes, it's very like a novelist, on +the hunt for picturesque events, to spend his forensic soul upon 'the +poor native,'--upon the dirty nigger, I choose to call him: the meanest, +cruellest, most cowardly, and murderous--by Jove, what a lot of +adjectives!--of native races. But we fellows, who have lost some of the +best friends we ever had--chums with whom we've shared blanket and +tucker--by the crack of a nulla-nulla in the dark, or a spear from the +scrub, can't find a place for Exeter Hall and its 'poor native' in our +hard hearts. We stand in such a case for justice. It is a new country. +Not once in fifty times would law reach them. Reprisal and dispersion +were the only things possible to men whose friends had been massacred, +and--well, they punished tribes for the acts of individuals." + +Mrs. Falchion here interposed. "That is just what England does. A +British trader is killed. She sweeps a native town out of existence with +Hotchkiss guns--leaves it naked and dead. That is dispersion too; I have +seen it, and I know how far niggers as a race can be trusted, and how +much they deserve sympathy. I agree with Mr. Blackburn." + +Blackburn raised his glass. "Mrs. Falchion," he said, "I need no further +evidence to prove my case. Experience is the best teacher." + +"As I wish to join the chorus to so notable a compliment, will somebody +pass the claret?" said Colonel Ryder, shaking the crumbs of a pate from +his coat-collar. When his glass was filled, he turned towards Mrs. +Falchion, and continued: "I drink to the health of the best teacher." +And every one laughingly responded. This impromptu toast would have been +drunk with more warmth, if we could have foreseen an immediate event. +Not less peculiar were Mrs. Falchion's words to Hungerford the evening +before, recorded in the last sentence of the preceding chapter. + +Cigars were passed, and the men rose and strolled away. We wandered +outside the gardens, passing the rejected guide as we did so. "I don't +like the look in his eye," said Clovelly. + +Colonel Ryder laughed. "You've always got a fine vision for the +dramatic." + +We passed on. I suppose about twenty minutes had gone when, as we were +entering the garden again, we heard loud cries. Hurrying forward towards +the Tanks, we saw a strange sight. + +There, on a narrow wall dividing two great tanks, were three people-- +Mrs. Falchion, Amshar, and the rejected Arab guide. Amshar was crouching +behind Mrs. Falchion, and clinging to her skirts in abject fear. The +Arab threatened with a knife. He could not get at Amshar without +thrusting Mrs. Falchion aside, and, as I said, the wall was narrow. He +was bent like a tiger about to spring. + +Seeing Mrs. Falchion and Amshar apart from the others,--Mrs. Falchion +having insisted on crossing this narrow and precipitous wall,--he had +suddenly rushed after them. As he did so, Miss Treherne saw him, and +cried out. Mrs. Falchion faced round swiftly, and then came this tragic +situation. + +Some one must die. + +Seeing that Mrs. Falchion made no effort to dislodge Amshar from her +skirts, the Arab presently leaped forward. Mrs. Falchion's arms went out +suddenly, and she caught the wrist that held the dagger. Then there was +an instant's struggle. It was Mrs. Falchion's life now, as well as +Amshar's. They swayed. They hung on the edge of the rocky chasm. Then +we lost the gleam of the knife, and the Arab shivered, and toppled over. +Mrs. Falchion would have gone with him, but Amshar caught her about the +waist, and saved her from the fall which would have killed her as +certainly as it killed the Arab lying at the bottom of the tank. She had +managed to turn the knife in the Arab's hand against his own breast, and +then suddenly pressed her body against it; but the impulse of the act +came near carrying her over also. + +Amshar was kneeling at her feet, and kissing her gown gratefully. She +pushed him away with her foot, and, coolly turning aside, began to +arrange her hair. As I approached her, she glanced down at the Arab. +"Horrible! horrible!" she said. I remembered that these were her words +when her husband was lifted from the sea to the 'Fulvia'. + +Not ungently, she refused my hand or any assistance, and came down among +the rest of the party. I could not but feel a strange wonder at the +powerful side of her character just shown--her courage, her cool daring. +In her face now there was a look of annoyance, and possibly disgust, as +well as of triumph--so natural in cases of physical prowess. Everybody +offered congratulations, but she only showed real pleasure, and that +mutely, at those of Miss Treherne. To the rest of us she said: "One had +to save one's self, and Amshar was a coward." + +And so this woman, whose hardness of heart and excessive cruelty +Hungerford and I were keeping from the world, was now made into a +heroine, around whom a halo of romance would settle whenever her name +should be mentioned. Now, men, eligible and ineligible, would increase +their homage. It seemed as if the stars had stopped in their courses to +give her special fortune. + +That morning I had thought her appearance at this luncheon-party was +little less than scandalous, for she knew, if others did not, who Boyd +Madras was. After the occurrence with the Arab, the other event was +certainly much less prominent, and here, after many years, I can see that +the act was less in her than it would have been in others. For, behind +her outward hardness, there was a sort of justice working, an iron thing, +but still not unnatural in her. + +Belle Treherne awakened also to a new perception of her character, and a +kind of awe possessed her, so masculine seemed her courage, yet so +womanly and feminine her manner. Mrs. Callendar was loud in her +exclamations of delight and wonder at Mrs. Falchion's coolness; and the +bookmaker, with his usual impetuosity, offered to take bets at four to +one that we should all be detained to give evidence in the matter. + +Clovelly was silent. He occasionally adjusted his glasses, and looked at +Mrs. Falchion as if he had suddenly come to a full stop in his opinions +regarding her. This, I think, was noticed by her, and enjoyed too, for +she doubtless remembered her conversation with me, in which she had said +that Clovelly thought he understood her perfectly. Colonel Ryder, who +was loyal at all times, said she had the nerve of a woman from Kentucky. +Moreover, he had presence of mind, for he had immediately sent off a +native to inform the authorities of what had occurred; so that before we +had got half-way to the town we were met by policemen running towards us, +followed by a small detachment of Indian soldiers. The officer in +command of the detachment stopped us, and said that the governor would be +glad if we would come to Government House for an hour, while an inquiry +was being held. + +To this we cheerfully consented, of course; and, in a room where punkahs +waved and cool claret-cup awaited us, we were received by the governor, +who was full of admiration of Mrs. Falchion. It was plain, however, that +he was surprised at her present equanimity. Had she no nerves at all? + +"I can only regret exceedingly," said the governor, "that your visit to +Aden has had such a tragical interruption; but since it has occurred, +I am glad to have the privilege of meeting a lady so brave as Mrs. +Falchion."--The bookmaker had introduced us all with a naivete that, +I am sure, amused the governor, as it certainly did his aide-de-camp. +"We should not need to fear the natives if we had soldiers as fearless," +his excellency continued. + +At this point the inquiry began, and, after it was over, the governor +said that there the matter ended so far as we were concerned, and then he +remarked gallantly that the Government of Aden would always remain Mrs. +Falchion's debtor. She replied that it was a debt she would be glad to +preserve unsettled for ever. After this pretty exchange of compliments, +the governor smiled, and offered her his arm to the door, where our 'char +a bans' awaited us. + +So impressed was the bookmaker with the hospitable reception the governor +had given us, that he offered him his cigar-case with its contents, said +he hoped they would meet again, and asked his excellency if he thought of +coming to Australia. The governor declined the cigars graciously, +ignored the hoped-for pleasure of another meeting, and trusted that it +might fall to his lot to visit Australia some day. Thereupon the +bookmaker insisted on the aide-de-camp accepting the cigar-case, and gave +him his visiting-card. The aide-de-camp lost nothing by his good-humoured +acceptance, if he smoked, because, as I knew, the cigars were very good +indeed. Bookmakers, gamblers and Jews are good judges of tobacco. And +the governor's party lost nothing in dignity because, as the traps +wheeled away, they gave a polite little cheer for Mrs. Falchion. I, at +first, was fearful how Belle Treherne would regard the gaucheries of the +bookmaker, but I saw that he was rather an object of interest to her than +otherwise; for he was certainly amusing. + +As we drove through Aden, a Somauli lad ran from the door of a house, and +handed up a letter to the driver of my trap. It bore my name, and was +handed over to me. I recognised the handwriting. It was that of Boyd +Madras. He had come ashore by Hungerford's aid in the night. The letter +simply gave an address in England that would always find him, and stated +that he intended to take another name. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +"THE PROGRESS OF THE SUNS" + +News of the event had preceded us to the 'Fulvia', and, as we scrambled out +on the ship's stairs, cheers greeted us. Glancing up, I saw Hungerford, +among others, leaning over the side, and looking at Mrs. Falchion in a +curious cogitating fashion, not unusual to him. The look was non- +committal, yet earnest. If it was not approval, it was not condemnation; +but it might have been slightly ironical, and that annoyed me. It seemed +impossible for him--and it was so always, I believe--to get out of his +mind the thought of the man he had rescued on No Man's Sea. I am sure +it jarred upon him that the band foolishly played a welcome when Mrs. +Falchion stepped on the deck. As I delivered Miss Treherne into the +hands of her father, who was anxiously awaiting us, Hungerford said in my +ear: "A tragedy queen, Marmion." He said it so distinctly that Mrs. +Falchion heard it, and she gave him a searching look. Their eyes met and +warred for a moment, and then he added: "I remember! Yes, I can respect +the bravery of a woman whom I do not like." + +"And this is to-morrow," she said, "and a man may change his mind, and +that may be fate--or a woman's whim." She bowed, turned away, and went +below, evidently disliking the reception she had had, and anxious to +escape inquiries and congratulations. Nor did she appear again until the +'Fulvia' got under way about six o'clock in the evening. As we moved out +of the harbour we passed close to the 'Porcupine' and saw its officers +grouped on the deck, waving adieus to some one on our deck, whom I +guessed, of course, to be Galt Roscoe. + +At this time Mrs. Falchion was standing near me. "For whom is that +demonstration?" she said. + +"For one of her officers, who is a passenger by the 'Fulvia'," I replied. +"You remember we passed the 'Porcupine' in the Indian Ocean?" + +"Yes, I know that very well," she said, with a shade of meaning. "But"-- +here I thought her voice had a touch of breathlessness--"but who is the +officer? I mean, what is his name?" + +"He stands in the group near the door of the captain's cabin, there. His +name is Galt Roscoe, I think." + +A slight exclamation escaped her. There was a chilly smile on her lips, +and her eyes sought the group until it rested on Galt Roscoe. In a +moment she said "You have met him?" + +"In the cemetery this morning, for the first time." + +"Everybody seems to have had business this morning at the cemetery. +Justine Caron spent hours there. To me it is so foolish, heaping up a +mound, and erecting a tombstone over--what?--a dead thing, which, if one +could see it, would be dreadful." + +"You would prefer complete absorption--as of the ocean?" I brutally +retorted. + +She appeared not to notice the innuendo. "Yes, what is gone is gone. +Graves are idolatry. Gravestones are ghostly. It is people without +imagination who need these things, together with crape and black-edged +paper. It is all barbaric ritual. I know you think I am callous, but I +cannot help that. For myself, I wish the earth close about me, and level +green grass above me, and no one knowing of the place; or else, fire or +the sea." + +"Mrs. Falchion," said I, "between us there need be no delicate words. +You appear to have neither imagination, nor idolatry, nor remembrances, +nor common womanly kindness." + +"Indeed!" she said. "Yet you might know me better." Here she touched +my arm with the tips of her fingers, and, in spite of myself, I felt my +pulse beat faster. It seemed to me that in her presence, even now, +I could not quite trust myself. "Indeed!" she repeated. "And who made +you omniscient, Dr. Marmion? You hardly do yourself justice. You hold a +secret. You insist on reminding me of the fact. Is that in perfect +gallantry? Do you know me altogether, from your knowledge of that one +thing? You are vain. Or does the secret wear on you, and--Mr. +Hungerford? Was it necessary to seek HIS help in keeping it?" + +I told her then the true history of Hungerford's connection with Boyd +Madras, and also begged her pardon for showing just now my knowledge of +her secret. At this she said, "I suppose I should be grateful," and was +there a slightly softer cadence to her voice? + +"No, you need not be grateful," I said. "We are silent, first, because +he wished it; then because you are a woman." + +"You define your reasons with astonishing care and taste," she replied. + +"Oh, as to taste!--" said I; but then I bit my tongue. + +At that she said, her lips very firm and pale, "I could not pretend +to a grief I did not feel. I acted no lie. He died as we had lived-- +estranged. I put up no memorials." + +But I, thinking of my mother lying in her grave, a woman after God's own +heart, who loved me more than I deserved, repeated almost unconsciously +these lines (clipped from a magazine): + + "Sacred the ring, the faded glove, + Once worn by one we used to love; + Dead warriors in their armour live, + And in their relics saints survive. + + "Oh, Mother Earth, henceforth defend + All thou hast garnered of my friend, + From winter's wind and driving sleet, + From summer's sun and scorching heat. + + "Within thine all-embracing breast + Is hid one more forsaken nest; + While, in the sky, with folded wings, + The bird that left it sits and sings." + +I paused; the occasion seemed so little suited to the sentiment, for +around us was the idle excitement of leaving port. I was annoyed with +myself for my share in the conversation so far. Mrs. Falchion's eyes had +scarcely left that group around the captain's door, although she had +appeared acutely interested in what I was saying. Now she said: + +"You recite very well. I feel impressed, but I fancy it is more your +voice than those fine sentiments; for, after all, you cannot glorify the +dead body. Look at the mummy of Thothmes at Boulak, and think what +Cleopatra must look like now. And please let us talk about something +else. Let us--" She paused. + +I followed the keen, shaded glance of her eyes, and saw, coming from the +group by the captain's door, Galt Roscoe. He moved in our direction. +Suddenly he paused. His look was fixed upon Mrs. Falchion. A flush +passed over his face, not exactly confusing, but painful, and again it +left him pale, and for a moment he stood motionless. Then he came +forward to us. He bowed to me, then looked hard at her. She held out +her hand. + +"Mr. Roscoe, I think?" she said. "An old friend," she added, turning to +me. He gravely took her extended hand and said: + +"I did not think to see you here, Miss--" + +"MRS. Falchion," she interrupted clearly. + +"MRS. Falchion!" he said, with surprise. "It is so many years since we +had met, and--" + +"And it is so easy to forget things? But it isn't so many, really--only +seven, the cycle for constitutional renewal. Dear me, how erudite that +sounds! . . . So, I suppose, we meet the same, yet not the same." + +"The same, yet not the same," he repeated after her, with an attempt at +lightness, yet abstractedly. + +"I think you gentlemen know each other?" she said. + +"Yes; we met in the cemetery this morning. I was visiting the grave of a +young French officer." + +"I know," she said--"Justine Caron's brother. She has told me; but she +did not tell me your name." + +"She has told you?" he said. + +"Yes. She is--my companion." I saw that she did not use the word that +first came to her. + +"How strangely things occur! And yet," he added musingly, "I suppose, +after all, coincidence is not so strange in these days of much travel, +particularly with people whose lives are connected--more or less." + +"Whose lives are connected--more or less," she repeated after him, in a +steely tone. + +It seemed to me that I had received my cue to leave. I bowed myself +away, and went about my duties. As we steamed bravely through the +Straits of Babelmandeb, with Perim on our left, rising lovely through the +milky haze, I came on deck again, and they were still near where I had +left them an hour before. I passed, glancing at them as I did so. They +did not look towards me. His eyes were turned to the shore, and hers +were fixed on him. I saw an expression on her lips that gave her face +new character. She was speaking, as I thought, clearly and mercilessly. +I could not help hearing her words as I passed them. + +"You are going to be that--you!" There was a ring of irony in her tone. +I heard nothing more in words, but I saw him turn to her somewhat +sharply, and I caught the deep notes of his voice as he answered her. +When, a moment after, I looked back, she had gone below. + +Galt Roscoe had a seat at Captain Ascott's table, and I did not see +anything of him at meal-times, but elsewhere I soon saw him a great deal. +He appeared to seek my company. I was glad of this, for I found that he +was an agreeable man, and had distinct originality of ideas, besides +being possessed of very considerable culture. He also had that social +aplomb so much a characteristic of the naval officer. Yet, man of the +world as he was, he had a strain of asceticism which puzzled me. It did +not make him eccentric, but it was not a thing usual with the naval man. +Again, he wished to be known simply as Mr. Roscoe, not as Captain Roscoe, +which was his rank. He said nothing about having retired, yet I guessed +he had done so. One evening, however, soon after we had left Aden, we +were sitting in my cabin, and the conversation turned upon a recent novel +dealing with the defection of a clergyman of the Church of England +through agnosticism. The keenness with which he threw himself into the +discussion and the knowledge he showed, surprised me. I knew (as most +medical students get to know, until they know better) some scientific +objections to Christianity, and I put them forward. He clearly and +powerfully met them. I said at last, laughingly: "Why, you ought to take +holy orders." + +"That is what I am going to do," he said very seriously, "when I get to +England. I am resigning the navy." At that instant there flashed +through my mind Mrs. Falchion's words: "You are going to be that--you!" + +Then he explained to me that he had been studying for two years, and +expected to go up for deacon's orders soon after his return to England. +I cannot say that I was greatly surprised, for I had known a few, and had +heard of many, men who had exchanged the navy for the Church. It struck +me, however, that Galt Roscoe appeared to view the matter from a stand- +point not professional; the more so, that he expressed his determination +to go to the newest part of a new country, to do the pioneer work of the +Church. I asked him where he was going, and he said to the Rocky +Mountains of Canada. I told him that my destination was Canada also. He +warmly expressed the hope that we should see something of each other +there. This friendship of ours may seem to have been hastily hatched, +but it must be remembered that the sea is a great breeder of friendship. +Two men who have known each other for twenty years find that twenty days +at sea bring them nearer than ever they were before, or else estrange +them. + +It was on this evening that, in a lull of the conversation, I casually +asked him when he had known Mrs. Falchion. His face was inscrutable, but +he said somewhat hurriedly, "In the South Sea Islands," and then changed +the subject. So, there was some mystery again? Was this woman never to +be dissociated from enigma? In those days I never could think of her +save in connection with some fatal incident in which she was scathless, +and some one else suffered. + +It may have been fancy, but I thought that, during the first day or two +after leaving Aden, Galt Roscoe and Mrs. Falchion were very little +together. Then the impression grew that this was his doing, and again +that she waited with confident patience for the time when he would seek +her--because he could not help himself. Often when other men were paying +her devoted court I caught her eyes turned in his direction, and I +thought I read in her smile a consciousness of power. And it so was. +Very soon he was at her side. But I also noticed that he began to look +worn, that his conversation with me lagged. I think that at this time +I was so much occupied with tracing personal appearances to personal +influences that I lost to some degree the physician's practical keenness. +My eyes were to be opened. He appeared to be suffering, and she seemed +to unbend to him more than she ever unbent to me, or any one else on +board. Hungerford, seeing this, said to me one day in his blunt way: +"Marmion, old Ulysses knew what he was about when he tied himself to the +mast." + +But the routine of the ship went on as before. Fortunately, Mrs. +Falchion's heroism at Aden had taken the place of the sensation attending +Boyd Madras's suicide. Those who tired of thinking of both became mildly +interested in Red Sea history. Chief among these was the bookmaker. As +an historian the bookmaker was original. He cavalierly waved aside all +such confusing things as dates: made Moses and Mahomet contemporaneous, +incidentally referred to King Solomon's visits to Cleopatra, and with sad +irreverence spoke of the Exodus and the destruction of Pharaoh's horses +and chariots as "the big handicap." He did not mean to be irreverent or +unhistorical. He merely wished to enlighten Mrs. Callendar, who said he +was very original, and quite clever at history. His really startling +points, however, were his remarks upon the colours of the mountains of +Egypt and the sunset tints to be seen on the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. +To him the grey, and pink, and melancholy gold only brought up visions +of a race at Epsom or Flemington--generally Flemington, where the staring +Australian sun pours down on an emerald course, on a score of horses +straining upon the start, the colours of the jockeys' coats and caps +changing in the struggle like a kaleidoscope, and making strange +harmonies of colour. The comparison between the mountains of Egypt and +a race-course might seem most absurd, if one did not remember that the +bookmaker had his own standards, and that he thought he was paying +unusual honour to the land of the Fellah. Clovelly plaintively said, +as he drank his hock and seltzer, that the bookmaker was hourly saving +his life; and Colonel Ryder admitted at last that Kentucky never produced +anything quite like him. + +The evening before we came to the Suez Canal I was walking with Miss +Treherne and her father. I had seen Galt Roscoe in conversation with +Mrs. Falchion. Presently I saw him rise to go away. A moment after, +in passing, I was near her. She sprang up, caught my arm, and pointed +anxiously. I looked, and saw Galt Roscoe swaying as he walked. + +"He is ill--ill," she said. + +I ran forward and caught him as he was falling. Ill? + +Of course he was ill. What a fool I had been! Five minutes with him +assured me that he had fever. I had set his haggard appearance down to +some mental trouble--and I was going to be a professor in a medical +college! + +Yet I know now that a troubled mind hastened the fever. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +BETWEEN DAY AND DARK + +From the beginning Galt Roscoe's fever was violent. It had been hanging +about him for a long time, and was the result of malarial poisoning. I +devoutly wished that we were in the Mediterranean instead of the Red Sea, +where the heat was so great; but fortunately we should soon be there. +There was no other case of sickness on board, and I could devote plenty +of time to him. Offers of assistance in nursing were numerous, but I +only encouraged those of the bookmaker, strange as this may seem; yet he +was as gentle and considerate as a woman in the sick-room. This was on +the first evening of his attack. After that I had reasons for dispensing +with his generous services. The night after Roscoe was taken ill we were +passing through the canal, the search-light of the 'Fulvia' sweeping the +path ahead of it and glorifying everything it touched. Mud barges were +fairy palaces; Arab punts beautiful gondolas; the ragged Egyptians on the +banks became picturesque; and the desolate country behind them had a wide +vestibule of splendour. I stood for half an hour watching this scene, +then I went below to Roscoe's cabin and relieved the bookmaker. The sick +man was sleeping from the effects of a sedative draught. The bookmaker +had scarcely gone when I heard a step behind me, and I turned and saw +Justine Caron standing timidly at the door, her eyes upon the sleeper. +She spoke quietly. "Is he very ill?" + +I answered that he was, but also that for some days I could not tell how +dangerous his illness might be. She went to the berth where he lay, the +reflected light from without playing weirdly on his face, and smoothed +the pillow gently. + +"If you are willing, I will watch for a time," she said. "Everybody is +on deck. Madame said she would not need me for a couple of hours. I +will send a steward for you if he wakes; you need rest yourself." + +That I needed rest was quite true, for I had been up all the night +before; still I hesitated. She saw my hesitation, and added: + +"It is not much that I can do, still I should like to do it. I can at +least watch." Then, very earnestly: "He watched beside Hector." + +I left her with him, her fingers moving the small bag of ice about his +forehead to allay the fever and her eyes patiently regarding him. I went +on deck again. I met Miss Treherne and her father. They both inquired +for the sick man, and I told Belle--for she seemed much interested--the +nature of such malarial fevers, the acute forms they sometimes take, and +the kind of treatment required. She asked several questions, showing a +keen understanding of my explanations, and then, after a moment's +silence, said meditatively: "I think I like men better when they are +doing responsible work; it is difficult to be idle--and important too." + +I saw very well that, with her, I should have to contend for a long time +against those first few weeks of dalliance on the 'Fulvia'. + +Clovelly joined us, and for the first time--if I had not been so +egotistical it had appeared to me before--I guessed that his somewhat +professional interest in Belle Treherne had developed into a very +personal thing. And with that thought came also the conception of what +a powerful antagonist he would be. For it improves some men to wear +glasses; and Clovelly had a delightful, wheedling tongue. It was +allusive, contradictory (a thing pleasing to women), respectful yet +playful, bold yet reverential. Many a time I have longed for Clovelly's +tongue. Unfortunately for me, I learned some of his methods without his +art; and of this I am occasionally reminded at this day. A man like +Clovelly is dangerous as a rival when he is not in earnest; when he IS in +earnest, it becomes a lonely time for the other man--unless the girl is +perverse. + +I left the two together, and moved about the deck, trying to think +closely about Roscoe's case, and to drive Clovelly's invasion from my +mind. I succeeded, and was only roused by Mrs. Falchion's voice beside +me. + +"Does he suffer much?" she murmured. + +When answered, she asked nervously how he looked--it was impossible that +she should consider misery without shrinking. I told her that he was +only flushed and haggard as yet and that he was little wasted. A thought +flashed to her face. She was about to speak, but paused. After a +moment, however, she remarked evenly: "He is likely to be delirious?" + +"It is probable," I replied. + +Her eyes were fixed on the search-light. The look in them was +inscrutable. She continued quietly: "I will go and see him, if you will +let me. Justine will go with me." + +"Not now," I replied. "He is sleeping. To-morrow, if you will." + +I did not think it necessary to tell her that Justine was at that moment +watching beside him. We walked the deck together in silence. + +"I wonder," she said, "that you care to walk with me. Please do not make +the matter a burden." + +She did not say this with any invitation to courteous protest on my part, +but rather with a cold frankness--for which, I confess, I always admired +her. I said now: "Mrs. Falchion, you have suggested what might easily be +possible in the circumstances, but I candidly admit that I have never yet +found your presence disagreeable; and I suppose that is a comment upon my +weakness. Though, to speak again with absolute truth, I think I do not +like you at this present." + +"Yes, I fancy I can understand that," she said. "I can understand how, +for instance, one might feel a just and great resentment, and have in +one's hand the instrument of punishment, and yet withhold one's hand +and protect where one should injure." + +At this moment these words had no particular significance to me, but +there chanced a time when they came home with great force. I think, +indeed, that she was speaking more to herself than to me. Suddenly she +turned to me. + +"I wonder," she said, "if I am as cruel as you think me--for, indeed, +I do not know. But I have been through many things." + +Here her eyes grew cold and hard. The words that followed seemed in no +sequence. "Yet," she said, "I will go and see him to-morrow. . . . +Good-night." After about an hour I went below to Galt Roscoe's cabin. +I drew aside the curtain quietly. Justine Caron evidently had not heard +me. She was sitting beside the sick man, her fingers still smoothing +away the pillow from his fevered face and her eyes fixed on him. I spoke +to her. She rose. "He has slept well," she said. And she moved to the +door. + +"Miss Caron," I said, "if Mrs. Falchion is willing, you could help me to +nurse Mr. Roscoe?" + +A light sprang to her eyes. "Indeed, yes," she said. + +"I will speak to her about it, if you will let me?" She bowed her head, +and her look was eloquent of thanks. After a word of good-night we +parted. + +I knew that nothing better could occur to my patient than that Justine +Caron should help to nurse him. This would do far more for him than +medicine--the tender care of a woman--than many pharmacopoeias. + +Hungerford had insisted on relieving me for a couple of hours at +midnight. He said it would be a good preparation for going on the bridge +at three o'clock in the morning. About half-past two he came to my cabin +and waked me, saying: "He is worse--delirious; you had better come." + +He was indeed delirious. Hungerford laid his hand on my shoulder. +"Marmion," he said, "that woman is in it. Like the devil, she is +ubiquitous. Mr. Roscoe's past is mixed up with hers somehow. I don't +suppose men talk absolute history in delirium, but there is no reason, +I fancy, why they shouldn't paraphrase. I should reduce the number of +nurses to a minimum if I were you." + +A determined fierceness possessed me at the moment. I said to him: "She +shall nurse him, Hungerford--she, and Justine Caron, and myself." + +"Plus Dick Hungerford," he added. "I don't know quite how you intend to +work this thing, but you have the case in your hands, and what you've +told me about the French girl shows that she is to be trusted. But as +for myself, Marmion M.D., I'm sick--sick--sick of this woman, and all her +words and works. I believe that she has brought bad luck to this ship; +and it's my last voyage on it; and--and I begin to think you're a damned +good fellow--excuse the insolence of it; and--good-night." + +For the rest of the night I listened to Galt Roscoe's wild words. He +tossed from side to side, and murmured brokenly. Taken separately, and +as they were spoken, his words might not be very significant, but pieced +together, arranged, and interpreted through even scant knowledge of +circumstances, they were sufficient to give me a key to difficulties +which, afterwards, were to cause much distress. I arrange some of the +sentences here to show how startling were the fancies--or remembrances +--that vexed him. + +"But I was coming back--I was coming back--I tell you I should have +stayed with her for ever. . . . See how she trembles!--Now her breath +is gone--There is no pulse--Her heart is still--My God, her heart is +still!--Hush! cover her face. . . . Row hard, you devils!--A hundred +dollars if you make the point in time. . . . Whereaway?--Whereaway?-- +Steady now!--Let them have it across the bows!--Low! low!--fire low! . . . +She is dead--she is dead!" + +These things he would say over and over again breathlessly, then he would +rest a while, and the trouble would begin again. "It was not I that did +it--no, it was not I. She did it herself!--She plunged it in, deep, +deep, deep! You made me a devil! . . . Hush! I WILL tell!--I know +you--yet--Mercy--Mercy--Falchion--" + +Yes, it was best that few should enter his cabin. The ravings of a sick +man are not always counted ravings, no more than the words of a well man +are always reckoned sane. At last I got him into a sound sleep, and +by that time I was thoroughly tired out. I called my own steward, and +asked him to watch for a couple of hours while I rested. I threw myself +down and slept soundly for an hour beyond that time, the steward having +hesitated to wake me. + +By that time we had passed into the fresher air of the Mediterranean, and +the sea was delightfully smooth. Galt Roscoe still slept, though his +temperature was high. + +My conference with Mrs. Falchion after breakfast was brief, but +satisfactory. I told her frankly that Roscoe had been delirious, that he +had mentioned her name, and that I thought it best to reduce the number +of nurses and watchers. I made my proposition about Justine Caron. She +shook her head a little impatiently, and said that Justine had told her, +and that she was quite willing. Then I asked her if she would not also +assist. She answered immediately that she wished to do so. As if to +make me understand why she did it, she added: "If I did not hear the +wild things he says, some one else would; and the difference is that +I understand them, and the some one else would interpret them with +the genius of the writer of a fairy book." + +And so it happened that Mrs. Falchion came to sit many hours a day beside +the sick couch of Galt Roscoe, moistening his lips, cooling his brow, +giving him his medicine. After the first day, when she was, I thought, +alternating between innate disgust of misery and her womanliness and +humanity,--in these days more a reality to me,--she grew watchful and +silently solicitous at every turn of the malady. What impressed me most +was that she was interested and engrossed more, it seemed, in the malady +than in the man himself. + +And yet she baffled me even when I had come to this conclusion. + +During most of his delirium she remained almost impassive, as if she had +schooled herself to be calm and strong in nerve; but one afternoon she +did a thing that upset all my opinions of her for a moment. Looking +straight at her with staring, unconscious eyes, he half rose in his bed, +and said in a low, bitter tone: "I hate you. I once loved you--but I +hate you now!" Then he laughed scornfully, and fell back on the pillow. +She had been sitting very quietly, musing. His action had been +unexpected, and had broken upon a silence. She rose to her feet quickly, +gave a sharp indrawn breath, and pressed her hand against her side, as +though a sudden pain had seized her. The next moment, however, she was +composed again, and said in explanation that she had been half asleep, +and he had startled her. But I had seen her under what seemed to me more +trying conditions, and she had not shown any nervousness such as this. + +The passengers, of course, talked. Many "true histories" of Mrs. +Falchion's devotion to the sick man were abroad; but it must be said, +however, that all of them were romantically creditable to her. She had +become a rare product even in the eyes of Miss Treherne, and more +particularly her father, since the matter at the Tanks. Justine Caron +was slyly besieged by the curious, but they went away empty; for Justine, +if very simple and single-minded, was yet too much concerned for both +Galt Roscoe and Mrs. Falchion to give the inquiring the slightest clue. +She knew, indeed, little herself, whatever she may have guessed. As for +Hungerford, he was dumb. He refused to consider the matter. But he +roundly maintained once or twice, without any apparent relevance, that +a woman was like a repeating decimal--you could follow her, but you never +could reach her. He usually added to this: "Minus one, Marmion," meaning +thus to exclude the girl who preferred him to any one else. When I +ventured to suggest that Miss Treherne might also be excepted, he said, +with maddening suggestion: "She lets Mrs. Falchion fool her, doesn't she? +And she isn't quite sure the splendour of a medical professor's position +is superior to that of an author." + +In these moments, although I tried to smile on him, I hated him a little. +I sought to revenge myself on him by telling him to help himself to a +cigar, having first placed the box of Mexicans near him. He invariably +declined them, and said he would take one of the others from the tea-box +--my very best, kept in tea for sake of dryness. If I reversed the +process he reversed his action. His instinct regarding cigars was +supernatural, and I almost believe that he had--like the Black Dwarf's +cat--the "poo'er" of reading character and interpreting events--an uncanny +divination. + +I knew by the time we reached Valetta that Roscoe would get well; but he +recognised none of us until we arrived at Gibraltar. Justine Caron and +myself had been watching beside him. As the bells clanged to "slow down" +on entering the harbour, his eyes opened with a gaze of sanity and +consciousness. He looked at me, then at Justine. + +"I have been ill?" he said. + +Justine's eyes were not entirely to be trusted. She turned her head +away. + +"Yes, you have been very ill," I replied, "but you are better." + +He smiled feebly, adding: "At least, I am grateful that I did not die at +sea." Then he closed his eyes. After a moment he opened them, and said, +looking at Justine: "You have helped to nurse me, have you not?" His +wasted fingers moved over the counterpane towards her. + +"I could do so little," she murmured. + +"You have more than paid your debt to me," he gently replied. "For I +live, you see, and poor Hector died." + +She shook her head gravely, and rejoined: "Ah no, I can never pay the +debt I owe to you and to God--now." He did not understand this, I know. +But I did. "You must not talk any more," I said to him. + +But Justine interposed. "He must be told that the nurse who has done +most for him is Mrs. Falchion." His brows contracted as if he were +trying to remember something. He moved his head wearily. + +"Yes, I think I remember," he said, "about her being with me, but nothing +clearly--nothing clearly. She is very kind." + +Justine here murmured: "Shall I tell her?" + +I was about to say no; but Roscoe nodded, and said quietly, "Yes, yes." + +Then I made no objection, but urged that the meeting should only be for +a moment. I determined not to leave them alone even for that moment. +I did not know what things connected with their past--whatever it was-- +might be brought up, and I knew that entire freedom from excitement was +necessary. I might have spared myself any anxiety on the point. When +she came she was perfectly self-composed, and more as she seemed when I +first knew her, though I will admit that I thought her face more possible +to emotion than in the past. + +It seems strange to write of a few weeks before as the past; but so much +had occurred that the days might easily have been months and the weeks +years. + +She sat down beside him and held out her hand. And as she did so, +I thought of Boyd Madras and of that long last night of his life, and +of her refusal to say to him one comforting word, or to touch his hand +in forgiveness and friendship. And was this man so much better than Boyd +Madras? His wild words in delirium might mean nothing, but if they meant +anything, and she knew of that anything, she was still a heartless, +unnatural woman, as I had once called her. + +Roscoe took her hand and held it briefly. "Dr. Marmion says that you +have helped to nurse me through my illness," he whispered. "I am most +grateful." + +I thought she replied with the slightest constraint in her voice. "One +could not let an old acquaintance die without making an effort to save +him." + +At that instant I grew scornful, and longed to tell him of her husband. +But then a husband was not an acquaintance. I ventured instead: "I am +sorry, but I must cut short all conversation for the present. When he +is a little better, he will be benefited by your brightest gossip, +Mrs. Falchion." + +She rose smiling, but she did not again take his hand, though I thought +he made a motion to that end. But she looked down at him steadily for +a moment. Beneath her look his face flushed, and his eyes grew hot with +light; then they dropped, and the eyelids closed on them. At that she +said, with an incomprehensible airiness: "Good-night. I am going now to +play the music of 'La Grande Duchesse' as a farewell to Gibraltar. They +have a concert on to-night." + +And she was gone. + +At the mention of La Grande Duchesse he sighed, and turned his head away +from her. What it all meant I did not know, and she had annoyed me as +much as she had perplexed me; her moods were like the chameleon's +colours. He lay silent for a long time, then he turned to me and said: +"Do you remember that tale in the Bible about David and the well of +Bethlehem?" I had to confess my ignorance. + +"I think I can remember it," he continued. And though I urged him not to +tax himself, he spoke slowly thus: + + "And David was in an hold, and the garrison of the Philistines was + then in Bethlehem. + + "And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me to drink of + the water of the well of Bethlehem that is at the gate! + + "And the three brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew + water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took + and brought it to David; nevertheless, he would not drink thereof, + but poured it out unto the Lord. + + "And he said, My God forbid it me that I should do this; is not this + the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? + Therefore he would not drink it." + +He paused a moment, and then added: "One always buys back the past at a +tremendous price. Resurrections give ghosts only." + +"But you must sleep now," I urged. And then, because I knew not what +else more fitting, I added: "Sleep, and + + "'Let the dead past bury its dead.'" + +"Yes, I will sleep," he answered. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Aboriginal dispersion +And even envy praised her +Audience that patronisingly listens outside a room or window +But to pay the vulgar penalty of prison--ah! +Death is a magnificent ally; it untangles knots +Engrossed more, it seemed, in the malady than in the man +For a man having work to do, woman, lovely woman, is rocks +It is difficult to be idle--and important too +It is hard to be polite to cowards +Jews everywhere treated worse than the Chinaman +One always buys back the past at a tremendous price +One doesn't choose to worry +Saying uncomfortable things in a deferential way +Slow-footed hours wandered by, leaving apathy in their train +That anxious civility which beauty can inspire +The ravings of a sick man are not always counted ravings +The sea is a great breeder of friendship +The tender care of a woman--than many pharmacopoeias +Vanity; and from this much feminine hatred springs +Very severe on those who do not pretend to be good +What is gone is gone Graves are idolatry +Who get a morbid enjoyment out of misery + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. 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