Death's Property

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Title:     Death's Property
Author: Ethel May Dell [More Titles by Dell]

CHAPTER I

A high laugh rang with a note of childlike merriment from the far end of the coffee-room as Bernard Merefleet, who was generally considered a bear on account of his retiring disposition, entered and took his seat near the door. It was a decidedly infectious laugh and perhaps for this reason it was the first detail to catch his attention and to excite his disapproval.

He frowned as he glanced at the menu in front of him.

He had arrived in England after an absence of twenty years in America, where he had made a huge fortune. He was hungering for the quiet unhurried speech of his fellow-countrymen, for the sights and sounds and general atmosphere of English life which for so long had been denied to him. And the first thing he heard on entering the coffee-room of this English hotel was the laugh of an American woman.

He had thought that in this remote corner of England--this little, old-world fishing town, with its total lack of entertainment, its unfashionable beach, and its wild North Sea breakers--no unit of the great Western race would have set foot. He had believed its entire absence of attraction to be a sure safeguard, and he was unfeignedly disgusted to discover that this was not the case.

As he ate his dinner the high laugh broke in on his meditations again and again, and his annoyance grew to a sense of savage irritation. He had come over to England for a rest after a severe illness, and with an intense craving, after his twenty years of stress and toil, to stand aside and watch the world--the English, conservative world he loved--dawdle by.

He wanted to bury himself in an unknown fishing-town and associate with the simple, unflurried fisher-folk alone. It was a dream of his--a dream which he had imagined near its fulfilment when he had arrived in the peaceful little world of Old Silverstrand.

There was a large and fashionable watering-place five miles away. This was New Silverstrand, a town of red brick, self-centred and prosperous. But he had not thought that its visitors would have overflowed into the old fishing-town. He himself saw no attraction there save the peace of the shore and the turmoil of the sea. He had known and loved the old town in his youth, long before the new one had been built or even thought of. For New Silverstrand was a growth of barely ten years.

In all his wanderings his heart had always turned with a warm thrill of memory to the little old fishing-town where much of his restless boyhood had been spent. He had returned to it as to a familiar friend and found it but slightly changed. A new hotel had been erected where the old Crayfish Inn had once stood. And this, so far as he had been able to judge in his first walk through the place on the evening of his arrival, was the sole alteration.

He had heard that the shore had crumbled beyond the town, but he had left that to be investigated on the morrow. The fishing-harbour was the same; the brown-sailed fishing-boats rocked with the well-remembered swing inside; the water poured roaring in with the same baffled fury; and children played as of old on the extreme and dangerous edge of the stone quay.

The memory of that selfsame quay roused deeper recollections in Merefleet's mind as he sat and dined alone at the little table near the door.

There came to him the thought, with a sudden, stabbing regret, of a little dark-eyed sister who had hung with him over that perilous edge and laughed at the impotent breakers below. He could hear the silvery echoes of her laughter across half a lifetime, could feel the warm hand that clasped his own. A magic touch swept aside the years and revealed the old, glad days of his boyhood.

Merefleet pushed away his plate and sat with fixed eyes, fascinated by the rosy vision. They were side by side in a fishing-smack, he and the playmate of his childhood. There was an old fisherman in charge with grizzled hair, whose name, he recollected without effort, was Quiller. He was showing the little maid how to tie a knot that was warranted never to come undone.

Merefleet watched the ardent, flushed face with a deep reverence. He had not seen it so vividly since the day he had kissed it for the last time and gone forth into the seething sea of life to fight the whirlpools. Well, he had emerged triumphant so far as earthly success went. He had breasted the tide and risen above the billows. He was wealthy, and he was celebrated. No mortal power rose up in his path to baulk him of his desire. Only desire itself had failed him, and ambition had become mockery.

For twenty years he had not had time to stop and think. For twenty years he had wrestled ceaselessly with the panting crowd. He had bartered away the best years of his life to the gold god, and he was satiated with the success of this transaction.

In all that time he had not mourned, as he mourned to-night, the loss of the twin-sister who had been as his second and better self. He had not realised till he sat alone in the place, where as a boy he had never known solitude, how utterly flat and undesirable was the future that stretched out like a trackless desert at his feet.

And in that moment he would have cast away the whole bulk of his great possessions for one precious day of youth out of the many that had fled away for ever.

A woman's laugh, high, inconsequent, rang through the great coffee-room, and all but one looked towards the corner whence it proceeded. An American voice began at once to explain the joke with considerable volubility.

Bernard Merefleet rose from his chair with a frowning countenance and made his way down to the old stone quay below the hotel.

 

CHAPTER II

The air was keen and salt. He paused on the well-worn stone wall and turned his face to the spray. A hundred memories were at work in his brain, and the relief of solitude was unspeakable. It was horribly lonely, but he hugged his loneliness. That laughing voice in the hotel coffee-room had driven him forth to seek it. No mental or physical discomfort would have induced him to return.

He propped himself against a piece of stonework and gazed moodily out to sea. He did not want to leave this haven of his childhood. Yet the thought of remaining in close proximity to a party of tourists was detestable to him. Why in the world couldn't they stop away, he wondered savagely? And then his own inconsistency occurred to him, and he smiled grimly. For the place undoubtedly had its charm.

A fisherman in a blue jersey lounged on to the quay at this point of his meditations, and, old habit asserting itself, Merefleet greeted him with a remark on the weather. The man halted in front of him in a conversational attitude. Merefleet knew the position well. It came back to him on a flood of memory. He could not believe that it was twenty years since he had talked with such an one.

"Wind in the nor'-east, sir," said the man.

"Yes. It's cold for the time of year," said Merefleet.

The man assented.

"Fish plentiful?" asked Merefleet.

"Nothing to boast of," was the guarded reply.

Merefleet had expected it. Right well he knew these fisher-folk.

"You get a few visitors now, I see," Merefleet observed.

The fisherman nodded. "Don't know what they come for," he observed. "Bathing ain't good, and them pleasure-boats--well"--he lifted his shoulders expressively--"half-a-capful of wind would upset 'em. There's a lady staying at this here hotel--an American lady she be--what goes out every day regular, she and a young gentleman with her. They won't have me nor yet any of my mates to go along, and yet--bless you--they could no more manage that boat if a squall was to come up nor they could fly. I told her once as it wasn't safe. And she laughed in my face, sir. She did, really."

Merefleet smiled a little.

"Well, if she likes to run the risk it's not your fault," he said.

"No, sir. It ain't. But that don't make me any easier. She's a pretty young lady, too," the man added. "Maybe you've seen her, sir."

Merefleet shook his head. He had heard her, and he had no desire to improve his acquaintance with her.

"As pretty a young lady as you would wish to see," continued the fisherman reflectively. "Wonderful, she is. 'Tain't often we get such a picture in this here part of the country. Ever been to America, sir?"

"Just come home," said Merefleet.

"Are all the ladies over there as pretty as this one, I wonder?" said his new acquaintance in an awed tone.

"She seems to have made a considerable impression," said Merefleet, with a laugh. "What is the lady like?"

But the man's descriptive powers were not equal to his admiration. "I couldn't tell you what she's like, sir," he said. "But she's that sort of young lady as makes you feel you oughtn't to talk to her with your hat on. Ever met that sort of lady, sir?"

Merefleet uttered a short laugh. The man's simplicity amused him.

"I can't say I have," he said carelessly. "Good-looking women are not always the best sort, in my opinion."

"That's very true, sir," assented his companion thoughtfully. "There's my wife, for instance. She's as good a woman as you'd find anywhere, but her best friend couldn't call her handsome, nor even plain."

And Merefleet laughed again. The man's talk had diverted his thoughts. The intolerable sense of desolation had been lifted from his spirit. He began to feel he had been somewhat unnecessarily irritated by a very small matter.

He lighted a cigar and presented one to his new friend. "I shall get you to row me out for a couple of hours to-morrow," he said. "By the way, did you ever know a man called Quiller who had some fishing craft in these parts twenty years ago?"

The man beamed at the question. "That's my father, sir. He lives along with my wife and the kids. Will you come and see him, sir? Oh, yes, he's well and hearty. But he's getting on in years, is dad. He don't go out with the luggers now. You'll come and see him, eh, sir?"

"To-morrow," said Merefleet, turning. "He will remember me, perhaps. No, I won't give you my name. The old chap shall find out for himself. Good-night."

And he began to saunter back towards his hotel.

The searchlight of a man-of-war anchored outside the harbour was flashing over the shore as he went. He watched the long shaft of light with half-involuntary attention. He noted in an idle way various details along the cliffs that were revealed by the white glow. It touched the hotel at last and rested there for the fraction of a minute.

And then a strange thing happened.

Looking upwards as he was, with fascinated eyes, following the slanting line of light, Merefleet saw a sight which was destined to live in his memory for all the rest of his life, strive as he might to rid himself of it.

As in a dream-picture he saw the figure of a girl standing on the steps of the terrace in front of the hotel. The searchlight discovered her and lingered upon her. She stood in the brilliant line of light, a splendid vision of almost unearthly beauty. Her neck and arms were bare, curved with the exquisite grace of a Grecian statue. Her face was turned towards the light--a marvellous face, touched with a faint, triumphant smile. She was dressed in a robe of pure white that fell around her in long, soft folds.

Merefleet gazed upon the wonder before him and asked himself one breathless question: "Is that--a woman?"

And the answer seemed to spring from the very depth of his being: "No! A goddess!"

It was the most gloriously perfect picture of beauty he had ever looked upon.

The searchlight flashed on and the hotel garden was left in darkness.

A chill sense of loss swept down upon Merefleet, but the impression did not last. He threw away his cigar with an impetuosity oddly out of keeping with his somewhat rugged and unimpressionable nature. A hot desire to see that face again at close quarters possessed him--the face of the loveliest woman he had ever beheld.

He reached the hotel and sat down in the vestibule. Evidently this marvellous woman was staying in the place. He watched the doorway with a strange feeling of excitement. He had not been so moved for years.

At length there came a quick, light tread. The next moment he was gazing again upon the vision that had charmed him out of all commonsense. She stood, framed in the night, white and pure and gloriously, most surpassingly, beautiful. Merefleet felt his heart throb heavily. He sat in dead silence, looking at her with fascinated eyes. Had he called her a Greek goddess? He had better have said angel. For this was no earth-born loveliness.

She stood for several seconds looking towards him with shining, radiant eyes. Then she moved forward. Merefleet's eyes were fixed upon her. He could not have looked away just then. He was absurdly uncertain of himself.

She paused near him with the light pouring full upon her. Her eyes met his with a momentary questioning. Then ruthlessly she broke the spell.

"Say, now!" she said in brisk, high tones. "Isn't that searchlight thing a real cute invention?"

 

CHAPTER III

Merefleet shivered at the words. He did not answer her. The shock had been too great. He sat stiff and silent, waiting for more.

The American girl looked at him with a pitying little smile. She was wholly unabashed.

"I reckon the man who invented searchlights was no fool," she remarked. "I just wish that quaint old battleship would come right along here. It's not exciting, this place."

"New Silverstrand would be more to your taste, I fancy," said Merefleet, reluctantly forced to speak.

The smile on the beautiful face developed into a wicked little gleam of amusement. "That's so, I daresay," said the high voice. "But you see, I wasn't consulted. I've just got to go where I'm taken."

She sank into a chair opposite Merefleet and leant forward.

Merefleet sat perfectly rigid. There was a marvellous witchery about the clasped hands and bent head before him. But he did not mean to let his idiotic sentimentality carry him away again. So long as the enchantress was speaking, the spell was wholly impotent. Therefore he should not suffer her to relapse into silence. Yet--how he hated that high, piercing voice! It was like the desecration of something sacred. It made him shrink in involuntary protest.

"Say!" suddenly exclaimed his companion, looking at him sharply. "Aren't you Bernard Merefleet of New York City?"

Merefleet frowned unconsciously at the notoriety that was his.

"I was in New York until recently," he said with some curtness.

"Exactly what I said," she returned triumphantly. "A friend of mine snap-shotted you walking up Fifth Avenue. He said to me: 'Here's Merefleet the gold-king, one of the cutest men in U.S.A. His first name is Bernard. So we call him the Big Bear for short.' Ever heard your pet name before?"

"Never," said Merefleet stiffly, with a suggestive hand on the evening paper. He wished she would leave him alone. With his eyes averted at length, the charm of her presence ceased to attract him. He even fancied he resented her freedom. But the girl only laughed carelessly. She had not the smallest intention of moving.

"Well," she said, and he imagined momentarily that her abominable accent was deliberately assumed. "I guess you've heard it now, Mr. Bernard Merefleet. Smart, I call it. What's your opinion?"

Merefleet started a little at the audacity of this speech. And again he was looking at her. There was a funny little smile twitching the corners of her mouth. Her beauty was irresistible. Even the iron barrier of his churlish avoidance was severely shaken. She was hard to withstand, this witch with her friendly eyes and frank speech, despite her jarring voice.

She nodded to him sociably as she met his grave look. "You aren't on a pleasure-trip, I reckon," she observed.

"Pleasure!" said Merefleet, giving way with abrupt bitterness. "No. There's not much pleasure in unearthing skeletons. That's what I'm doing."

The beautiful eyes opposite opened wide. She was silent for a moment. Then, "Think you're wise?" she enquired casually.

"No," said Merefleet roughly. "I'm a fool."

She nodded acquiescence. "That's so, I daresay," she said. "I was afraid you were sick."

"So I am," he said. "Sick of life--sick of everything."

"I guess you want some medicine," she said seriously.

Merefleet laughed suddenly. "Something strong and deadly, eh?" he said.

She shook her head. "Tell me what you like best in the world!" she said.

Merefleet reflected.

"You must know," she insisted briskly. "Is it a woman?"

"Good heavens, no!" said Merefleet, with an emphasis not particularly flattering to the sex.

"Well, then," she said, "p'r'aps it's the sea?"

"You may say so for the sake of argument," said Merefleet.

"I don't argue," she responded, with what he took for a touch of heat. "If people disagree with me I just shunt."

"Excellent policy," said Merefleet, interested in spite of himself. He fancied a faint shadow crossed her face. But she continued to speak with barely a pause. "If you like the sea you'd better join Bert and me. We go out every day. It's real fun."

"Exciting as well as dangerous," suggested Merefleet.

She nodded again. It was a habit of hers when roused to eagerness. "You've hit it. It's just that," she said. "Will you come?"

Merefleet hesitated. He was still inclined to be surly. But the new influence was not so easy to resist as he had imagined. The woman before him attracted him strongly, despite the fact that he now knew her loveliness to be but mortal; despite the constant jar of her shrill voice.

"Who is Bert?" he enquired at length, reluctantly aware that in temporising he signed away his freedom of action.

"Bert's my cousin," she answered. "He's English right through. You'd like Bert. He's in the smoke-room. Bert and I are great chums."

"Are you staying here alone together?" Merefleet enquired.

She nodded. "Bert is taking care of me," she explained. "He's like a son to me. I call him my English bull-dog. I just love bull-dogs, Mr. Merefleet."

Merefleet was silent.

She stretched out her arms with a swift, unconscious movement of weariness.

"Well," she said, "I'm real lazy to-night, and that's fact. I guess you want to smoke, so I'll go and leave you in peace."

She rose and stood for a few moments in the doorway, looking out into the pulsing darkness beyond. Merefleet watched her, fascinated. And as he watched, a deep shadow rose and lingered on the beautiful face. Moved by an instinct he did not stop to question, he rose abruptly and stood beside her. There was a pause. Then suddenly she looked up at him and the shadow was gone.

"Isn't he cross?" she said.

"Who?" asked Merefleet.

"Why, that funny old sea," she laughed. "He's just wild to dash over and swamp us all. Supposing he did, should you care any?"

"I don't know," said Merefleet.

Her eyes were full of a soft laughter as she looked at him. Suddenly she laid a childish hand on his arm. "Oh, you poor old Bear!" she said, dropping her voice a little. "I'm real sorry for you!"

And then she turned swiftly and was gone from his side like a flash of sunlight.

 

CHAPTER IV

It was some time later that Merefleet entered the smoking-room to satisfy a certain curiosity which had taken possession of him. He looked round the room as he sat down, and almost at once his attention lighted upon a broad-shouldered man of about thirty with a plain, square-jawed face of great determination, who sat, puffing at a short pipe, by the open window.

Merefleet silently observed this man for some time, till, his scrutiny making itself felt, the object of it wheeled abruptly in his chair and returned it.

Merefleet leant forward. It was so little his custom to open conversation with a stranger that his manner was abrupt and somewhat forced on this unusual occasion.

"I believe I ought to know you," he said. "But I can't recall your name."

The reply was delivered in a manner as curt as his own. "My name is Seton," said the stranger. "As you have only met me once before, you probably won't recall it now."

Merefleet nodded comprehension. He loved the straight, quiet speech of Englishmen. There was no flurry or palaver about this specimen. He spoke as a man quite sure of himself and wholly independent of his fellow men.

"Ah, I remember you now," Merefleet said. "You came as Ralph Warrender's guest to a club dinner in New York. Am I right?"

"Perfectly," said Seton. "You were the guest of the evening. You made a good speech, I remember. You were looking horribly ill. I suppose that is how I came to notice you particularly."

"I was ill," said Merefleet, "or I should have been out of New York before that dinner came off. I always detested the place. And Warrender would have done far better in my place."

"I am not an admirer of Warrender," said Seton bluntly.

Merefleet made no comment. He was never very free in the statement of his opinion.

"The railway accident in which his wife was killed took place immediately after that dinner, I believe?" he observed presently. "I remember hearing of it when I was recovering."

"It was a shocking thing--that accident," said Seton thoughtfully. "It's odd that Americans always manage to do that sort of thing on such a gigantic scale."

"They do everything on a gigantic scale," said Merefleet. "What became of Warrender afterwards? It was an awful business for him."

"I don't know anything about him," Seton answered, with a brevity that seemed to betray lack of interest. "He was no friend of mine, though I chanced to be his guest on that occasion. I was distantly connected with his wife, and I inherited some of her money at her death. She was a rich woman, as you probably know."

"So I heard. But I have never found New York gossip particularly attractive."

Seton leant his elbow on the window-sill and gazed meditatively into the night. "If it comes to that," he said slowly, "no gossip is exactly edifying. And to be the victim of it is to be in the most undesirable position under the sun."

It struck Merefleet that he uttered the words with some force, almost with the deliberate intention of conveying a warning; and, being the last man in the world to attempt to fathom the wholly irrelevant affairs of his neighbour, he dropped into silence and began to smoke.

Seton sat motionless for some time. The murmur of a conversation that was being sleepily sustained by two men in the room behind them created no disturbing influence. Presently Seton spoke casually, but with that in his tone which made Merefleet vaguely conscious of an element of suspicion.

"You didn't expect to see me just now, did you?" he asked.

"No," said Merefleet. "I should have taken the trouble to call your name to mind before I spoke if I had."

Seton nodded. "I saw you at _table d'hote_" he remarked. "I was with my cousin at the other end of the room. You were gone when we got up."

"Your cousin?" said Merefleet deliberately. "Is that the American lady who is staying here?"

"Yes. Miss Ward. She is from New York, too. You may have seen her there."

"No," said Merefleet. "I know very little of New York society, or any society for the matter of that."

Seton turned and looked at him with a smile. "Odd," he said. "For there can be scarcely a man, woman, or child, here or in America, who does not know you by name."

"Not so bad as that, I hope," said Merefleet. And Seton laughed.

"You have the reputation for shunning celebrity," he remarked.

"So I understand," said Merefleet. "I hope the reputation will be my protection."

Young Seton became genial from that point onward. Without being communicative, he managed to convey the impression that he was quite prepared to be friendly. And for some reason unexplained Merefleet was pleased. He went to bed that night with somewhat revised ideas on the subject of society in general and the society of American girls in particular.

 

CHAPTER V

"Is this the gentleman as was to come and see me? Come in, sir. Come in! My old eyes ain't so sharp as they used to be, but I can see a many things yet."

And old Quiller, the fisherman, removed his sou'wester from his snowy head and peered at the visitor from under his hand.

"You don't know me, eh, Quiller?" Merefleet said.

He was surprised to hear a high voice from the interior of the cottage break in on the old man's hesitating reply.

"He's a sort of walking monkey-puzzle, I guess," said the voice, and a roguish laugh followed the words.

Merefleet looked over old Quiller's shoulder into the little kitchen. She was standing by the table with her sleeves up to her elbows, making some invalid dish. A shaft of sunlight slanting through the tiny window fell full upon her as she stood. It made him think of the searchlight glory of the previous night. She shone like a princess in her lowly surroundings.

She nodded to him gaily as she met his eyes.

"Come right in!" she said hospitably. "And I shall tell Grandpa Quiller who you are."

"Aye, but I know," broke in the old man eagerly. "Master Bernard, ain't it? That's right, sonny. That's right. Yes, come in! There! I never thought to see you again. That I never did. This here's little missie what comes regular to see my daughter-in-law as has been laid by this week or more. I calls her our good angel," he ended tenderly. "She's been the Lord's own blessing to us ever since she come."

Merefleet, thus invited, entered and sat down on a wooden chair by the table. Old Quiller turned in also and fussed about him with the solicitude that comes with age.

"No," he said meditatively, "I never thought to see you again, Master Bernard. Why, it's twenty year come Michaelmas since you said 'Good-bye.' And little miss was with you. Ah, dear! It do make me think of them days to see you in the old place again. I always said as I'd never see the match of little miss but this young lady, sir--she's just such another, bless her."

Merefleet, with his eyes on the busy white hands at the table, smiled at the eulogy.

The American girl glanced at him and laughed more softly than usual. "Isn't he fine?" she said. "I just love that old man."

Somehow that peculiar voice of hers did not jar upon him quite so painfully as he sat and watched her at her dexterous work. There was something about her employment that revealed to him a side of her that her frivolous manner would never have led him to suspect. While he talked to the old fisherman, more than half his attention was centred on her beautiful, innocent face.

"My!" she suddenly exclaimed, turning upon him with a dazzling smile. "I reckon you'll almost be equal to beating up an egg yourself if you watch long enough."

"Perhaps," said Merefleet.

She laughed gaily. "Are you coming along with Bert and me this afternoon in Quiller's boat?" she inquired.

"I believed I have engaged Quiller to come and do the hard work for me," Merefleet said.

"You!" She was bending over the fire, stirring the beaten egg into a saucepan. "Oh, you lazy old Bear!" she said reprovingly. "What good will that do you?"

"I don't know that I want anything to do me good," Merefleet returned. He had become almost genial under these unusual circumstances. It was certainly no easy matter to keep this exceedingly sociable young lady at a distance.

He was watching the warm colour rising in her face as she stooped over the fire. He had never imagined that the art of cookery could be conducted with so much of grace and charm. Her odd, high voice instantly broke in on this reflection.

"I'm going to see Mrs. Quiller and the baby now," she said, with her sprightly little nod. "So long, Big Bear!"

The little kitchen suddenly looked dull and empty. The sun had gone in. Old Quiller was sucking tobacco ruminatively, his fit of loquacity over.

Merefleet rose. "Well, I am glad to have seen you, Quiller," he said, patting the old man's shoulder with a kindly hand. "I must come in again. You and I are old friends, you know, and old comrades, too. Good-bye!"

Quiller looked at him rather vacantly. The fire of life was sinking low in his veins. He had grown sluggish with the years, and the spark of understanding was seldom bright.

"Aye, but she's a bonny lass, Master Bernard," he said with slow appreciation. "A bonny lass she be. You ain't thinking of getting settled now? I'm thinking she'd keep your home tidy and bright."

"Good-bye!" said Merefleet with steady persistence.

"Aye, she would," said the old man, shifting the tobacco in his cheek. "She's been a rare comfort to me and mine. She'd be a blessing to your home, Master Bernard. Take an old chap's word for it, an old chap as knows what's what. That young lady'll be the joy of some man's heart some day. You've got your chance, Master Bernard. You be that man!"

 

CHAPTER VI

"Say, Bert! We can take Big Bear along in our boat. Isn't that so?"

Merefleet looked up from his paper as he heard the words. They were seated at the next table at lunch, his American friend and her excessively English cousin. Merefleet noticed that she was dressed for boating. She wore a costume of white linen, and a Panama hat was crammed jauntily on the soft, dark hair. She was anything but dignified. Yet there was something splendid in the very recklessness of her beauty. She was a queen who did not need to assert her rights. There were other women present, and Merefleet was not even conscious of the fact.

"Who?" asked Seton, in response to her careless inquiry.

She nodded in Merefleet's direction and caught his eye as she did so.

"He's the cutest man in U.S.," she said, staring him straight in the face without sign of recognition. "But he's real lazy. He saw me making custard at Grandpa Quiller's this morning, and he wasn't even smart enough to lift the saucepan off the fire. I thought he might have had spunk enough for that, anyway."

Twenty-four hours earlier Merefleet would have deliberately hunched his shoulders, turned his back, and read his paper. But his education was in sure hands. He had made rapid progress since the day before.

He leant a little towards his critic and said gravely:

"Pray accept my apologies for the omission! To tell you the truth, I was not watching the progress of the cookery."

The girl nodded as if appeased.

"You can come and sit at this table," she said, indicating a chair opposite to her. "I guess you know my cousin Bert Seton."

"What makes you guess that?" Merefleet inquired, changing his seat as directed.

She looked at him with a little smile of superior knowledge. "I guess lots," she said, but proffered no explanation of her shrewd conclusion.

Young Seton greeted Merefleet with less cordiality than he had displayed on the previous evening. There was a suggestion of caution in his manner that created a somewhat unfavourable impression in Merefleet's mind.

Already he was beginning to wonder how these two came to be thus isolated in the forgotten little town of Old Silverstrand. It was not a natural state of affairs. Neither the girl with her marvellous beauty, nor the man with his peculiar concentration of purpose, was a fitting figure for such a background. They were out of place--most noticeably so.

Merefleet was the very last man to make observations of such a description. But this was a matter so obvious and so undeniably strange that it forced itself upon him half against his will. He became strongly aware that Seton did not desire his presence in the boat with him and his cousin. He did not fathom the objection. But its existence was not to be ignored. And Merefleet wondered a little, as he cast about in his mind for a suitable excuse wherewith to decline the girl's invitation.

"It's very good of you to ask me to accompany you, Miss Ward," he said presently. "But I know that Quiller the younger is under the impression that I have engaged him to row me out of the harbour and bring me back again. And I don't see very well how I can cancel the engagement."

Miss Ward nudged her cousin at this speech.

"Oh, if he isn't just quaint!" she said. "Look here, Bert! You're running this show. Tell Mr. Merefleet it's all fixed up, and if he won't come along with us he won't go at all, as we've got Quiller's boat!"

Seton glanced up, slightly frowning.

"My dear Mab," he said, "allow Mr. Merefleet to please himself! The fact that you are willing to put your life in my hands day after day is no guarantee of my skill as a rower, remember."

"Oh, skittles!" said Mab irrelevantly.

And Seton, meeting Merefleet's eyes, shrugged his shoulders as if disclaiming all further responsibility.

Mab leant forward.

"You'd better come, Mr. Merefleet," she said in a motherly tone. "It'll be a degree more lively than mooning around by yourself."

And Merefleet yielded, touched by something indescribable in the beautiful, glowing eyes that were lifted to his. Apparently she wanted him to go, and it seemed to him too small a thing to refuse. Perhaps, also, he consulted his own inclination.

Seton dropped his distant manner after a time. Nevertheless the impression of being under the young man's close observation lingered with Merefleet, and Mab herself seemed to feel a strain. She grew almost silent till lunch was over, and then, recovering, she entered into a sprightly conversation with Merefleet.

They went down to the shore shortly after, and embarked in Quiller's boat. Mab sat in the stern under a scarlet sunshade and talked gaily to her two companions. She was greatly amused when Merefleet insisted upon doing his share of the work.

"I love to see you doing the galley-slave," she said. "I know you hate it, you poor old Bear."

But Merefleet did not hate his work. He sat facing her throughout the afternoon, gazing to his heart's content on the perfect picture before him. He wore his hands to blisters, and the sun beat mercilessly down upon him. But he felt neither weariness nor impatience, neither regret nor surliness.

A magic touch had started the life in his veins; the revelation of a wandering searchlight had transformed his sordid world into a palace of delight. He accepted the fact without question. He had no wish to go either forward or backward.

The blue sea and the blue sky, and the distant, shining shore. These were what he had often longed for in the rush and tumult of a great, unresting city. But in the foreground of his picture, beyond desire and more marvellous than imagination, was the face of the loveliest woman he had ever seen.

 

CHAPTER VII

There was no wandering alone on the quay for Merefleet that night. It was very warm and he sat on the terrace with his American friend. Far away over at New Silverstrand, a band was playing, and the music came floating across the harbour with the silvery sweetness which water imparts. The lights of the new town were very bright. It looked like a dream-city seen from afar.

"I guess we are just a couple of Peris shut outside," said Mab in her brisk, unsentimental voice. "I like it best outside, don't you, Big Bear?"

"Yes," said Merefleet, with a simplicity that provoked her mirth.

"Oh, aren't you just perfect!" she said. "You've done me no end of good. I'd pay you back if I could."

Merefleet was silent. He could not see her beautiful face, but her words touched him inexplicably.

There was a long pause. Then, to his great surprise, a warm little hand slipped on to his knee in the darkness and a voice, so small that he hardly recognised it, said humbly:

"Mr. Merefleet, I'm real sorry."

Merefleet started a little.

"Good heavens! Why?" he said.

"Sorry you disapprove of me," she said, with a little break in her voice. "Bert used to be the same. But he's different now. He knows I wasn't made prim and proper."

She paused. Merefleet's hand was on her own. He sat in silence, but somehow his silence was kind.

She went on. "I wasn't going to speak last night. Only you looked so melancholy at dinner. And then I thought p'r'aps you were lonely, like I am. I didn't find out till afterwards that you didn't like the way I talked."

"Do you know you make me feel a most objectionable cad?" said Merefleet.

"Oh, no, you aren't that," she hastened to assure him. "I'm positive you aren't that. It was my fault. I spoke first. I thought you looked real sad. And I always want to hearten up sad folks. You see I've been there, and I know what it is."

"You!" said Merefleet.

Did he hear a sob in the darkness beside him? He fancied so. The hand that lay beneath his own twitched as if agitated.

"What do you know about trouble?" said Merefleet.

She did not answer him. Only he heard a long, hard sigh. Then she laughed rather mirthlessly.

"Well," she said, "there aren't many things in this world worth crying for. You've had enough of me, I guess. It's time I shunted."

She tried to withdraw her hand, but Merefleet's hold tightened.

"No, no. Not yet," he said, almost as if he were pleading with her. "I've behaved abominably. But don't punish me like this!"

She laughed again and yielded.

"You ought to know your own mind by now," she said, with something of her former briskness. "It's a rum world, Mr. Merefleet."

"It isn't the world," said Merefleet. "It's the people in it. Now, Miss Ward, I have a favour to ask. Promise me that you will never again imagine for a moment that I am not pleased--more, honoured--when you are good enough to stop by the way and speak to me. Of your charity you have stooped to pity my loneliness. And, believe me, I do most sincerely appreciate it."

"My!" she said. "That's the nicest thing you've said yet. Yes, I promise that. You're real kind, do you know? You make me feel miles better."

She drew her hand gently away. Merefleet was trying to discern her features in the darkness.

"Are you really lonely, I wonder?" he said. "Or is that a figure of speech?"

"It's solid fact," she said. "But, never mind me! Let's talk of something nicer."

"No, thanks!" Merefleet could be obstinate when he liked. "Unless you object, I prefer to talk about you."

She laughed a little, but said nothing.

"I want to know what makes you lonely," he said. "Don't tell me, of course, if there is any difficulty about it!"

"No," she responded coolly. "I won't. But I guess I'm lonely for much the same reason that you are."

"I have never been anything else since I became a man," said Merefleet.

"Ah!" she said. "I might say the same. Fact is"--she spoke with sudden startling emphasis--"I ought to be dead. And I'm not. That's my trouble in a nutshell."

"Great heavens, child!" Merefleet exclaimed, with an involuntary start. "Don't talk like that!"

"Why not?" she asked innocently. "Is it wrong?"

"It isn't literal truth, you know," he answered gravely. "You will not persuade me that it is."

"I'm no judge then," she said, with a note of recklessness in her voice.

"You have your cousin," Merefleet pointed out, feeling that he was on uncertain ground, yet unaccountably anxious to prove it. "You are not utterly alone while he is with you."

She uttered a shrill little laugh. "Why," she said, "I believe you think I'm in love with Bert."

Merefleet was silent.

"I'm not, you know," she said, after a momentary pause. "I'm years older than Bert, anyhow."

"Oh, come!" said Merefleet.

"Figuratively, of course," she explained.

"I understand," said Merefleet. And there was a silence.

Suddenly she laughed again merrily.

"May I share the joke?" asked Merefleet.

"You won't see it," she returned. "I'm laughing at you, Big Bear. You are just too quaint for anything."

Merefleet did not see the joke, but he did not ask for an explanation.

Seton himself strolled on to the terrace and joined them directly after; and Mab began to shiver and went indoors.

The two men sat together for some time, talking little. Seton seemed preoccupied and Merefleet became sleepy. It was he who at length proposed a move.

Seton rose instantly. "Mr. Merefleet," he said rather awkwardly, "I want to say a word to you."

Merefleet waited in silence.

"Concerning my cousin," Seton proceeded. "You will probably misread my motive for saying this. But nevertheless it must be said. It is not advisable that you should become very intimate with her."

He brought out the words with a jerk. It had been a difficult thing to say, but he was not a man to shrink from difficulties. Having said it, he waited quietly for the result.

Merefleet paused a moment before he spoke. Seton had surprised him, but he did not show it.

"I shall not misread your motive," he said, "as I seldom speculate on matters that do not concern me. But allow me to say that I consider your warning wholly uncalled for."

"Exactly," said Seton, "I expected you to say that. Well, I am sorry. It is quite impossible for me to explain myself. I hope for your sake you will never be placed in the position in which I am now. I assure you it is anything but an enviable one."

His manner, blunt and direct, appealed very strongly to Merefleet. He said nothing, however, and they went in together in unbroken silence. Mab did not reappear that night.

 

CHAPTER VIII

A fortnight passed away and Merefleet was still at the hotel at Old Silverstrand. Mab was there also, the idol of the fisher-folk, and an unfailing source of interest and admiration to casual visitors at the hotel.

Merefleet, though he had become a privileged acquaintance, was still wholly unenlightened with regard to the circumstances which had brought her to the place under Seton's escort.

As time went on, it struck Merefleet that these two were a somewhat incongruous couple. They dined together and they usually boated together in the afternoon--this last item on account of Mab's passion for the sea; but beyond this they lived considerably apart. Neither seemed to seek the other's society, and if they met at lunch, it was never by preconceived arrangement.

Merefleet saw more of Mab when she was ashore than Seton did. They would meet on the quay, in old Quiller's cottage, or in the hotel-garden, several times a day. Occasionally he would accompany them on the water, but not often. He had a notion that Seton preferred his absence, and he would not go where he felt himself to be an intruder.

Nevertheless, the primary fascination had not ceased to act upon him; the glamour of the girl's beauty was still in his eyes something more than earthly. And there came a time when Bernard Merefleet listened with unconscious craving for the high, unmodulated voice, and smiled with a tender indulgence over the curiously naive audacity which once had made him shrink.

As for Mab, she was too eagerly interested in various matters to give more than a passing thought to the fact that the man she called Big Bear had laid aside his surliness. If she thought about it at all, it was only to conclude that their daily intercourse had worn away the outer crust of his shyness.

She was always busy--in and out of the fishermen's cottages, where she was welcomed as an angel--to and fro on a hundred schemes, all equally interesting and equally absorbing. And Merefleet was called upon to assist. She singled him out for her friendship because he was as one apart and without interests. She drew him into her own bubbling life. She laughed at him, consulted him, enslaved him.

All innocently she wove her spell about this man. He was lonely, she knew; and she, in her ardent, great-souled pity for all such, was willing to make cheerful sacrifice of her own time and strength if thus she might ease but a little the burden that galled a fellow-traveller's shoulders.

Merefleet came upon her once standing in the sunshine with Mrs. Quiller's baby in her arms. She beckoned him to speak to her. "Come here if you aren't afraid of babies!" she said, displaying her charge. "Look at him, Big Bear! He's three weeks old to-day. Isn't he fine?"

"What do you know about babies?" said Merefleet, with his eyes on her lovely flushed face.

She nodded in her sprightly fashion, but her eyes were far away on the distant horizon, and her soul with them. "I know a lot, Big Bear," she said.

Merefleet watched her, well pleased with the sight. She stood rocking to and fro. Her gaze was fixed and tender.

"I wonder what you see," Merefleet said, after a pause.

Her eyes came back at once to her immediate surroundings.

"Shall I tell you, Big Bear?" she said.

"Yes," said Merefleet, marvelling at the radiance of her face.

And, her voice hushed to a whisper, she moved a pace nearer to him and told him.

"Just a little baby friend of mine who lives over there," she said. "I'm going to see him some day. I guess he'll be glad, don't you?"

"Who wouldn't?" said Merefleet. "But that's not the West, you know."

"No," she said simply. "He's in the Land beyond the sea, Big Bear." And with a strange little smile into his face, she drew the shawl closer about the child in her arms and disappeared into Quiller's cottage.

There was something in this interview that troubled Merefleet unaccountably. But when he saw her again, her mirth was brimming over, and he thought she had forgotten.

 

CHAPTER IX

It was about a week after this conversation that Merefleet, invited by Seton, joined his two friends at _table d'hote_ at their table. The suggestion came from Mab, he strongly suspected, for she seconded Seton's proposal so vigorously that to decline would have been almost an impossibility.

"You look so lonely there," she said. "It's miles nicer over here. What's your opinion?"

"I agree with you, of course," said Merefleet, with a glance at Seton which discovered little.

"Isn't he getting polite?" said the American girl approvingly. "Say, Bert! I guess you'll have to take lessons in manners or he'll get ahead of you."

Seton smiled indulgently. He was this girl's watch-dog and protector. He aspired to be no more.

"My dear girl, you will never make a social ornament of me as long as you live," he said.

And Mab patted his arm affectionately.

"You're nicer as you are, dear boy," she said. "You aren't smart, it's true, but I give you the highest mark for real niceness."

Seton's eyes met Merefleet's for a second. There was a touch of uneasiness about him, as if he feared Merefleet might misconstrue something. And Merefleet considerately struck a topic which he believed to be wholly impersonal.

"By the way," he said, "I had an American paper sent me to-day. It may interest you to hear that Ralph Warrender has resigned his seat in Congress and married again."

"What?" said Seton.

"My!" cried Mab, with a shrill laugh. "That is news, Mr. Merefleet!"

Merefleet glanced at her sharply, his attention arrested by something he did not understand. Seton pushed a glass of sherry towards her, but he was looking at Merefleet.

"News indeed!" he said deliberately. "Is it actually an accomplished fact?"

"According to the _New York Herald_," said Merefleet.

Mab's face was growing whiter and whiter. Seton still leant over the table, striving with all his resolution to force Merefleet's attention away from her. But Merefleet would not allow it. He saw what Seton did not stop to see; and it was he, not Seton, who lifted her to her feet a moment later and half-led, half-carried her out of the stifling room.

With a practical commonsense eminently characteristic of him, Seton remained to pour out a glass of brandy; and thus armed he followed them into the vestibule. Mab was lying back in an arm-chair when he arrived. Her eyes were closed, and she was breathing quickly. Merefleet was propping open the door on to the terrace. The lights flickered in the draught and gave a strange look to the colourless face on the cushion. It was like a beautifully carved marble. But for Merefleet the place was deserted.

Seton knelt down and held the glass to his cousin's lips.

Merefleet returned softly and paused behind her chair.

"It's this confounded heat," said Seton in a savage undertone. "She will be all right directly."

Merefleet said nothing. Again he was keenly conscious of the fact that Seton wanted to get rid of him. But a stronger influence than Seton possessed kept him standing there.

Mab opened her eyes as the neat spirit burnt her lips. She tried to push the glass away, but Seton would not allow it.

"Just a drain, my dear girl," he said. "It will do you all the good in the world. And then--Merefleet," glancing up at him, "will you fetch some water?"

Merefleet went as desired.

When he returned, Mab was lying forward in Seton's arms, crying as he had never seen any woman cry before. And Seton was stroking her hair in silence.

Merefleet set down the water noiselessly, and went softly out into the summer dusk. But the great waves beating on the shore could not drown the memory of a woman's bitter sobbing. And the man's heart was dumb and heavy with the trouble he could not fathom.

Some hours later, returning from a weary tramp along the shore, he encountered Seton pacing to and fro on the terrace.

"She is better," he said, in answer to Merefleet's conventional enquiry. "It was the heat, you know, that upset her."

"Yes," said Merefleet quietly. "I know."

Seton walked away restlessly, more as if he wished to keep on the move than to avoid Merefleet. He came back, however, after a few seconds.

"Look here, Merefleet," he said abruptly, "you may take offence, but you can't quarrel without my consent. For Heaven's sake, leave this place! You are doing more mischief than you have the smallest notion of."

There was that in his manner which roused the instinct of opposition in Merefleet.

"You will either tell me what you mean," he said, "or you need not expect to gain your point. Veiled hints, like anonymous letters, do not deserve any man's serious consideration."

Seton muttered something inaudible and became silent.

Merefleet waited for some moments and then began to move off. But the younger man instantly turned and detained him with an imperative hand.

"What I mean is this," he said, and the starlight on his face showed it to be very determined. "My cousin is not in a position to receive any man's attentions. She is not free. I have tried to persuade myself into thinking you want nothing but ordinary friendship. I should infinitely prefer to think that if you can assure me that I am justified in so doing."

"What is it to you?" said Merefleet.

"To me personally it is more a matter of family honour than anything else. Moreover I am her sole protector, and as such I am bound to assert a certain amount of authority."

"So you may," said Merefleet quietly. "But I do not see that that involves my departure."

Seton struck the balustrade of the terrace with an impatient hand. "Can't you understand?" he said rather thickly. "How else can I put it?"

"I have no desire to pry into your affairs, Heaven knows," Merefleet said, "but this I will say. If I can be of use to either of you in helping to dispose of what appears to be a somewhat awkward predicament you may rely upon me with absolute safety."

"Thanks!" Seton turned slowly and held out his hand. "There is only one thing you can do," he said, with an awkward laugh. "And that is precisely what you are not prepared to do. All right. I suppose it's human nature. I am obliged to you all the same. Good-night!"

 

CHAPTER X

"Say, Big Bear! Will you take me on the water?"

Merefleet, lounging on the shingle with a pipe and newspaper, looked up with a start and hastened to knock out the half-burnt tobacco on the heel of his boot.

His American friend stood above him, clad in the white linen costume she always wore for boating. She looked very enchanting and very childlike. Merefleet who had seen her last sobbing bitterly in her cousin's arms, stared up at her with wonder and relief on his face.

She nodded to him. Her eyes were marvellously bright, but he did not ascribe their brilliance to recent tears.

"You don't look exactly smart," she said critically. "Hope I don't intrude?"

"Not a bit." Merefleet stumbled to his feet and raised his hat. "Pardon my sluggishness! How are you this morning?"

"Fresh as paint," she returned. "But I'm just dying to get on the water. And Bert has gone off somewhere by himself. I guess you'll help me, Big Bear. Won't you?"

Merefleet glanced from the sea to the sun.

"There's a change coming," he said. "I will go with you with pleasure. But I think it would be advisable to wait till the afternoon as usual. We shall probably know by then what sort of weather to expect."

Mab pouted a little.

"We shan't go at all if we wait," she declared. "Why can't we go while the fine weather lasts? I believe you want to back out of it. It's real lazy of you, Big Bear. You shan't read, anyhow."

She took his paper from his unresisting hands, dug a hole in the shingle with vicious energy, and covered it over.

"Now what?" she said, looking up at him with an impudent smile.

"Now," said Merefleet gravely, "I will take you for a row."

"Will you? Big Bear, you're a brick. I'll put you into my will. No, I won't, because I haven't got anything to leave. And you wouldn't want it if I had. Say, Big Bear! Haven't you got any friends?"

Merefleet looked surprised at the abrupt question.

"I have one friend in England besides yourself, Miss Ward," he replied. "His name is Clinton. But he is married and done for."

"My! What a pity!" she exclaimed. "Isn't he happy?"

"Oh, yes, I think so. Still, you know, most fellows have to sacrifice something when they marry. He was a war-correspondent. But he has spoilt himself for that."

"I see." Mab was prodding the shingle with the end of her sunshade, her face very thoughtful. Suddenly she looked up. "Never get married, Big Bear!" she said vehemently. "It's the most miserable state in Christendom."

"Anyone would think you spoke from experience," said Merefleet, smiling a little.

But Mab did not smile.

"I know a lot, Big Bear," she said, with a sharp sigh.

Merefleet was silent. His thoughts had gone back to the previous night. He was surprised when she suddenly alluded to the episode.

"There's that man Ralph Warrender," she said. "I guess the woman that's married him thinks he's A1 and gilt-edged now, poor soul. But he's just a miserable patchwork mummy really, and there isn't any white in him--no, not a speck."

She spoke with such intense, even violent bitterness that Merefleet was utterly astonished. He stood gravely contemplating her flushed, upturned face.

"What has he done to make you say that, I wonder?" he said.

"Nothing to me," she answered quickly. "Nothing at all to me. But I used to know his first wife. She was a sort of friend of mine. They used to call her the loveliest woman in U.S., Mr. Merefleet. And she belonged to that fiend."

They began to walk towards the boats through the shifting shingle. Merefleet had nothing to say. There was something in her passionate speech that disturbed him vaguely. She spoke as one whose most sacred personal interests had once been at stake.

"Lucky for her she's dead, Big Bear," she said presently, with a side-glance at him. "I've never regretted any of my friends less than Mrs. Ralph Warrender. Oh, she was real miserable. I've seen her with diamonds piled high in her hair and her face all shining with smiles. And I've known all the time that her heart was broken. And when I heard that she was dead, do you know, I was glad--yes, thankful. And I guess Warrender wasn't sorry. For she hated him."

"I never cared for Warrender," said Merefleet. "But I always took him for a gentleman."

She laughed at his words with a gaiety that jarred upon him. "Do you know, Big Bear," she said, "I think they must have forgotten to teach you your ABC when you went to school? You're such an innocent."

Merefleet tramped by her side in silence. There was something in him that shrank when she spoke in this vein.

But quite suddenly her tone changed. She spoke very gently. "Still, it's better to know too little than too much," she said. "And oh, Big Bear, I know such a lot."

Merefleet looked at her sharply and surprised an expression on her face which he did not easily forget.

He knew in that moment that this woman had suffered, and his heart gave a wild, tumultuous throb. From that moment he also knew that she had taken his heart by storm.

 

CHAPTER XI

Half-an-hour later they were out on the open sea beyond the harbour in a cockleshell even frailer than Quiller's little craft which they had not been able to secure.

The sea was very quiet, only broken by an occasional long swell that drove them southward like driftwood. Merefleet, who had been persuaded to quit the harbour against his better judgment, was not greatly disturbed by this fact. He did not anticipate any difficulty in returning. A little extra labour was the worst he expected, for he knew that a southward course would bring him into no awkward currents. Away to the eastward he was aware of treacherous streams and shoals. But he had no intention of going in that direction, and Mab, who steered, knew the water well.

There was no sun, a circumstance which Mab deplored, but for which Merefleet was profoundly grateful.

"You're not nearly so lazy as you used to be," she said to him approvingly, as he rested his oars after a long pull.

"No," said Merefleet. "I am beginning to see the error of my ways."

"I'm real glad to hear you say so," she said heartily. "And I want to tell you, Big Bear--that as I'm never going to New York again, I've decided to be an Englishwoman. And you've got to help me."

Merefleet looked at her with undisguised appreciation, but he shook his head at her words. She was marvellous; she was inimitable; she was unique. She would never, never be English. His gesture said as much. But she was not discouraged.

"I guess I'll try, anyhow," she said with brisk determination. "You don't like American women, Mr. Merefleet."

"Depends," said Merefleet.

And she laughed gaily.

They were drifting in long sweeps towards the south. Imperceptibly also the distance was widening between the boat and the shore. The wind was veering to the west.

"My! Look at that oar!" Mab suddenly exclaimed.

Merefleet started at the note of dismay in her tone. He had shipped his oars. They were the only ones that had been provided. He glanced hastily at the oar Mab indicated. It had been broken and roughly spliced together. The wood that had been used for the splicing was rotten, and the friction in the rowlocks had almost worn it through. Merefleet examined it in silence.

The girl's voice, high, with a quiver in it that might have stood for either laughter or consternation, broke in on him.

"Well," she said, "I guess we're in the suds this time, Big Bear; and no mistake about it."

Merefleet glanced at her helplessly. He did not think she realised the gravity of the situation, but something in the little smile that twitched her lips undeceived him.

"The sea was full of boats a little while ago," he said. "They have probably gone in for the lunch hour. But they will be out again presently. We shall have to drift about for a while and then run up a distress signal. It will be all right."

She nodded to him and laughed.

"Splendid, Big Bear! You talk like an oracle. I guess we'll run up my red parasol on the end of an oar for a danger sign. Bert could see that from the terrace." She glanced shorewards as she spoke, and he saw her face change momentarily. "Why," she said quickly, "I thought we were close in. What's happened?"

Merefleet looked round with sullen perception of a difficult situation.

"The wind is blowing off shore," he explained. "It was north when we started. But it has gone round to the west. It will be all right, you know. We can't drift very far in an hour."

But he did not speak with conviction. The sea tumbled all around them, a mighty grey waste. And the shore seemed very far away. A dismal outlook in truth. Moreover it was beginning to rain.

Mab sheltered herself under her sunshade and began to laugh. "It's just skittles to what it might be," she said consolingly.

But Merefleet did not respond. He knew that the wind was rising with every second, and already the little boat tipped and tossed with perilous buoyancy.

Mab still held the rudder-lines. She sat in the stern, a serene and smiling vision, while Merefleet toiled with one oar to counteract the growing strength of the off-shore wind. But she very soon put down her sunshade, and he saw that she must speedily be drenched to the skin. For the rain was heavy, drifting over the water in thick, grey gusts. They were being driven steadily eastwards out to sea.

"I don't think my steering makes much difference, Big Bear," she said, after a long silence.

"No," said Merefleet. "It would take all the strength of two rowers to make headway against this wind."

He shipped his oar with the words and began to take off his coat. Mab watched him with some wonder. He was seated on the thwart nearest to her. He stooped forward at length very cautiously and, taking the rudder-lines from her, made them fast.

"Now get into this!" he said. "Mind you don't upset the boat!"

She stared at him for one speechless second. Then:

"No, I won't, Big Bear," she declared emphatically. "Put it on again at once! Do you suppose I'll sit here in your coat while you shiver in nothing but flannels?"

"Do as I say!" said Merefleet, with a grim hardening of the jaw.

And quite meekly she obeyed. There was something about him that inspired her with awe at that moment. She felt as if she had run against some obstacle in the dark.

The rain began to beat down in great, shifting clouds. The sea grew higher at every moment. Flecks of white gleamed here and there on all sides. The boat was dancing like a cork.

Mab sat in growing terror with her eyes on the roaring turmoil. The minutes crawled by like hours. At length she turned to look shorewards for the boats. A driving, blinding mist of rain beat into her face. She saw naught besides. And suddenly her courage failed her. "Big Bear!" she cried wildly. "What shall we do? I'm so frightened."

He heard her through the storm. He was still sitting on the middle thwart facing her. He moved, bending towards her.

"Come to me here!" he said. "It will be safer."

She crept to his outstretched arm with a sense of going into refuge. Merefleet helped her over the thwart. There was a torn piece of sailcloth in the bottom of the boat. He drew her down on to it and turned round himself so that his back was towards the storm. He was thus able to shelter her in some measure from the full fury of the blast.

Mab shrank against him, terrified and quivering.

"It looks so angry," she said.

"Don't be afraid!" said Merefleet.

And he put his arms about her and held her close to him as if she had been a little child afraid of the dark.

 

CHAPTER XII

No pleasure-boats or craft of any sort put out from Silverstrand that afternoon. The wind eventually blew away the clouds and revealed a foaming, sunlit sea. But the waves were immense at high tide, and the fishermen muttered among themselves and stared darkly out over the mighty breakers.

It was known among them that a boat had put out to sea in the morning and had not returned before the rising of the gale. There were heavy hearts in Old Silverstrand that day. But to launch another boat to search for the missing one was out of the question. The great seas that came hurling into the little fishing-harbour were sufficient proof of that, even to the most inexperienced landsman.

Seton, learning the news when lunch was half over, rushed off to New Silverstrand in the hope that the boat might have been driven in that direction by the strong current. But nothing had been seen from there of the missing craft, and though he traversed the entire distance by way of the cliffs, he saw nothing throughout his walk but flecks of foam here and there over the tumbling expanse of water.

He returned an hour or so later, reaching Old Silverstrand by five. But nothing had been heard there. The fishermen shook their heads when he questioned them. It was plain that they had given up hope.

Seton raged up and down the quay in impotent agony of mind. The off-shore wind continued for some hours. There was not the smallest doubt that the boat had been driven out to sea, unless--a still more awful possibility--she had been swamped and sunk long ago. As darkness fell, the gale at length abated, and Quiller the younger approached Seton.

"Tell you what, sir," he said. "There's a cruiser been up and down a matter of ten miles out. Me and my mates will put out at daybreak and see if we can get within hail of her. There's the light-ship, too, off Morden's Shoal. 'Tain't likely as a boat could have slipped between 'em without being seen. For if she was just drifting, you know, sir, she wouldn't go very fast."

"All right," said Seton. "And thanks! I'll go with you in the morning."

Quiller lingered, though there was dismissal in the tone.

"Go in and get a rest, sir!" he said persuasively. "There ain't no good in your wearing yourself out here. You can't do nothing, sir, except pray for a calm sea. Given that, we'll start with the light."

"Very well," said Seton, and turned away. He knew that the man spoke sense and he put pressure on himself to behave rationally. Nevertheless, he spent the greater part of the night in a fever of restlessness which no strength of will could subdue; and he was down on the quay long before the first faint gleam of light shot glimmering over the quiet water.

* * * * *

It was during those first wonderful moments of a new day that Mab woke up with a start shivering, and stretched out her arms with a cry of wonder.

Hours before, Merefleet had persuaded her to try to rest, and she had fallen asleep with her head against his knee, soothed by the calm that at length succeeded the storm. He had watched over her with grim endurance throughout the night, and not once had he seen a light or any other object to raise his hopes.

They were out of sight of land; alone on the dumb waste. He had not the smallest notion as to how far out to sea the boat had drifted. Only he fancied that they had been driven out of the immediate track of steamers, and in the great emptiness around him he saw no means of escape from the fate that seemed to dog them.

The boat had lived miraculously, it seemed to him, through the awful storm of the day. Tossed ruthlessly and aimlessly to and fro, drenched to the skin, hungry and forlorn, he and the woman who was to him the very desire of life, had gone through the peril of deep waters. Merefleet was beginning to wonder why they had thus escaped. It seemed to him but a needless prolonging of an agony already long drawn out.

Nevertheless there was nothing of despair in his face as he stooped over the girl who was crouching at his feet.

"Glad you have been able to sleep," he said gently. "Don't get up! There is no necessity if you are fairly comfortable."

She smiled up at him with the ready confidence of a child and raised herself a little.

"Still watching, Big Bear?" she said.

"Yes," said Merefleet.

His tone told her that he had seen nothing. She lay still for a few moments, then slowly turned her face towards the east. A deep pink glow was rising in the sky. There was a rosy dusk on the sea about them.

"My!" said Mab in a soft whisper. "Isn't that lovely?"

Merefleet said nothing. He was watching her beautiful face with a great hunger in his heart.

Mab was also silent for a while. Presently she turned her face up to his.

"The Gate of Heaven," she said in a whisper. "Isn't it fine?"

He did not speak.

She lifted a hand that felt like an icicle and slipped it into his.

"I guess we shall do this journey together, Big Bear," she said. "I'm real sorry I made you come if you didn't want to."

"You needn't be sorry," said Merefleet, with a huskiness he could not have accounted for.

"No?" she said, with a curious little thrill in her voice. "It's real handsome of you, Big Bear. Because--you know--I ought to have died more than a year ago. But you are different. You have your life to live."

Merefleet's hand closed tightly upon hers.

"Don't talk like that, child!" he said. "Heaven knows your life is worth more than mine."

Mab leant her elbow on his knee and gazed thoughtfully over the far expanse of water. Merefleet knew that she was faint and exhausted, though she uttered no complaint.

"Shall I tell you a secret, Big Bear?" she said, in the hushed tone of one on the threshold of a sacred place. "I ended my life long ago. I was very miserable and Death came and offered me refuge. And it was such a safe hiding-place. I knew no one would look for me there. Only lately I have come to see that what I did was wicked. I think you helped to make me see, Big Bear. You're so honest. And then a dreadful thing happened. Have you ever spoilt anyone's life besides your own, I wonder? I have. That is why I have got to die. There is no place left for me. I gave it up. And there is someone else there now."

She stopped. Merefleet was bending over her with that in his face that might have been the reflected glory of the growing day. Mab saw it, and stretched up her other hand with a startled sob.

"Big Bear, forgive me!" she whispered. "I--didn't--know."

A moment later she was lying on his breast, and the first golden shimmer of the morning had risen above the sea.

"I shan't mind dying now," Mab whispered, a little later. "I was real frightened yesterday. But now--do you know?--I'm glad--glad. It's just like sailing into Paradise, isn't it? Are any of your people there, Big Bear?"

"Perhaps," said Merefleet.

"Won't you be pleased to see them?" she said, with a touch of wonder at the indifference in his tone.

"I want nothing but you, my darling," he said, and his lips were on her hair.

He felt her fingers close upon his own.

"I guess it won't matter in Heaven," she said, as though trying to convince herself of something. "My dear, shall I tell you something? I love you with all my heart. I never knew it till to-day. And if we weren't so near Heaven I reckon I couldn't ever have told you."

Some time later she began to talk in a dreamy way of the Great Haven whither they were drifting. The sun was high by then and beat in a wonderful, dazzling glory on the pathless waters.

"There's no sun There," said Mab. "But I guess it will be very bright. And there will be crowds and crowds along the Shore to see us come into Port. And I'll see my little baby among them. I told you about him, Big Bear. Finest little chap in New York City. He'll be holding out his arms to me, just like he used. Ah! I can almost see him now. Look at his curls. Aren't they fine? And his little angel face. There isn't anyone like him, I guess. Everybody said he was the cutest baby in U.S. Coming, darling! Coming!"

Mab's hands slackened from Merefleet's clasp, and suddenly she stretched out her arms to the sky. The holiest of all earthly raptures was on her face.

Then with a sharp sigh she came to herself and turned back to Merefleet. A piteous little smile hovered about her quivering lips.

"I guess I've been dreaming, Big Bear," she said. "Such a dream! Oh, such a gorgeous, heavenly dream!"

And she hid her face on his breast and burst into tears.

 

CHAPTER XIII

Before the sun set they were sighted by the cruiser returning to her anchorage outside the little fishing-harbour. Mab, worn out by hunger and exposure, had slipped back to her former position in the bottom of the boat. She was half asleep and seemed dazed when Merefleet told her of their approaching deliverance. But she clung fast to him when a boat from the cruiser came alongside; and he lifted her into it himself.

"By Jove, sir, you've had a bad time!" said a young officer in the boat.

"Thirty hours," said Merefleet briefly.

He kept his arm about the girl, though his brain swam dizzily. And Mab, consciously or unconsciously, held his hand in a tight clasp.

Merefleet felt as if she were definitely removed out of his reach when she was lifted from his hold at length, and the impression remained with him after he gained the cruiser's deck. He met with most courteous solicitude on all sides and was soon on the high-road to recovery.

Later in the evening, when Mab also was sufficiently restored to appear on deck, the cruiser steamed into Silverstrand Harbour, and the two voyagers were landed by one of her boats, in the midst of great rejoicing on the quay.

Seton, who had long since returned from a fruitless search for tidings, was among the crowd of spectators. He said little by way of greeting, and there was considerable strain apparent in his manner towards Merefleet. He hurried his cousin back to the hotel with a haste not wholly bred of the moment's expediency. Merefleet followed at a more leisurely pace. He made no attempt to join them, however. He had done his part. There remained no more to do. With a heavy sense of irrevocable loss he went to bed and slept the dreamless sleep of exhaustion for many hours.

The adventure was over. It had ended with a tameness that gave it an almost commonplace aspect. But Merefleet's resolution was of stout manufacture.

The consequences of that night and day of peril involved his whole future. Merefleet recognised this and resolved to act forthwith, in defiance of Seton or any other obstacle. He did not realise till later that there was opposed to him a strength which even his will was powerless to overcome. He did not even take the possibility of this into consideration.

He was very sure of himself and confident of success when he descended late on the following morning to a solitary breakfast--sure of himself, sure of the smile of that fickle goddess Fortune--sure, thrice sure, of the woman he loved.

And he watched for her coming with a rapture that deprived him of his appetite.

But Mab did not come.

Instead, Herbert Seton presently strolled into the room, greeted him, and paused by his table.

"Be good enough to join me on the terrace presently, will you?" he said abruptly.

And Merefleet nodded with a chill sense of foreboding. But his resolution was unalterable. This young man should not, he was determined, by any means cheat him now of his heart's desire. Matters had gone too far for that. He followed Seton almost at once and found him in a quiet corner, smoking. Merefleet sat down beside him and also began to smoke. There was a touch of hostility about Seton that he was determined to ignore.

"Well," said Seton at length, with characteristic bluntness, "so you have done it in spite of my warning the other night."

Merefleet looked at him. Was he expected to render an account of his doings to this man who was at least ten years his junior, he wondered, with faint amusement?

Seton went on with strong indignation.

"I told you in the first place not to be too intimate with her. I told you again two nights ago that she was not free to accept any man's attentions. But you went on. And you have made her miserable simply for the gratification of your own unreasonable fancy. Do you call that manly behaviour, I wonder?"

Merefleet sat in absolute silence for several seconds. Finally he wheeled round in his chair and faced Seton.

"If I were you," he said quietly, "I should postpone this interview for half-an-hour. I think you may possibly regret it if you don't."

Seton tossed away a half-smoked cigarette and rose.

"In half-an-hour," he said, "I shall have left this place, and my cousin with me. I asked to speak to you because I detest all underhand dealings. You apparently have not the same scruples."

Merefleet also rose.

"You will apologise for that," he said, in a tone of conviction. "I don't question your motives, but to fetch me out here and then insult me was not a wise proceeding on your part."

Seton's hand clenched involuntarily. But he had put himself in the wrong, and he knew it.

"Very well," he said at length, with a shrug. "I apologise for the expression. But my opinion of you remains unaltered."

Merefleet ignored the qualification. He was bent on something more important than the satisfaction of his own personal honour. "And now," he said, with deliberate purpose, "I am going to have a private interview with your cousin."

Seton started.

"You are going to do nothing of the sort," he said instantly.

Merefleet looked him over gravely.

"Look here, Seton!" he said. "You're making a fool of yourself. Take a friend's advice--don't!"

Seton choked back his anger with a great effort. In spite of this there was a passionate ring in his voice when he spoke that betrayed the exceeding precariousness of his self-control.

"I can't let you see her," he said. "She is upset enough already. I have promised her that she shall not be worried."

"Have you promised her to keep me from speaking to her?" Merefleet grimly enquired.

"No." Seton spoke reluctantly.

"Then do this," said Merefleet. "Go to her and ask her if she will see me alone. If she says 'No,' I give you my word that I will leave this place and trouble neither of you any further."

Seton seemed to hesitate, but Merefleet was sure of his acquiescence. After a pause of several seconds he fulfilled his expectations and went.

Merefleet sat down again and waited. Seton returned heavy-footed.

"She will see you," he said curtly. "You will find her in the billiard-room."

"Alone?" said Merefleet, rising.

"Alone."

And Merefleet walked away.

 

CHAPTER XIV

He found her sitting in a great arm-chair at one end of the empty billiard-room. She did not rise to meet him. He thought she looked tired out and frightened.

He went to her and stooped over her, taking her hands. She did not resist him, but neither did she welcome. Her lips were quivering painfully.

"What have I done that you should run away from me?" Merefleet asked her very gently.

She shook her head with a helpless gesture.

"Mr. Merefleet," she whispered, "try--try not to be cross any! I'm afraid I've made a big mistake."

"My dear, we all make them," Merefleet said with grave kindliness.

"I know," she faltered. "I know. But mine was a real bad one."

"Never mind, child!" he said tenderly. "Why should you tell me?"

She threw a swift look into his face. She was trembling violently.

"Big Bear," she cried with sudden vehemence, "you don't understand."

He knelt down beside her and put his arm about her.

"Listen to me, my darling," he said, and she shrank at the deep thrill in his voice. "To me you are all that is beautiful and good and holy. I do not want to know what lies behind you. I know you have had trouble. But it is over. You may have made mistakes. But they are over, too. Tell me nothing! Leave the past alone! Only give me your present and your future. I shall be quite content."

He paused. She was shivering within his encircling arm. He could hear her breath coming and going very quickly.

"You love me, darling," he said. "And is it necessary for me to tell you that I worship you as no one ever has worshipped you before?"

He paused again. But Mab did not speak. The beautiful face was working painfully. Her hands were tightly clasped in his.

"Child, what is it?" Merefleet said, conscious of a hidden barrier between them. "Can't you trust yourself to me? Is that it? Are you afraid of me? You didn't shrink from me yesterday."

She bowed her head. Yesterday she had wept in his arms. But to-day no tears came. Only a halting whisper, a woman's cry of sheer weakness.

"Don't tempt me, Big Bear!" she murmured. "Oh, don't tempt me! I am not--free!"

Merefleet's face grew stern.

"You did not say that yesterday," he said.

She heard the change in his tone, and looked up. She was better able to meet this from him.

"I know," she said. "And I guess that was where I went wrong. I ought to have waited till we were dead. But, you see, I didn't know."

"Then do you tell me you are not free?" Merefleet said. "Do you mean literally that? Are you the actual property of another man?"

She shook her head with baffling promptitude.

"I guess I'm just Death's property, Big Bear," she said, with a wistful little smile. "But he doesn't seem over-keen on having me."

"Stop!" said Merefleet harshly. "I won't have you talk like that. It's madness. Tell me what you mean!"

"I can't," Mab said. "I can't tell you. It wouldn't be fair. Don't be angry, Big Bear! It's just the price I've got to pay. And it's no use squirming. I've worried it round and round. But it always comes back to that. I'm not free. And no one but Bert must ever know why."

Merefleet sprang to his feet with an impatience by no means characteristic of him.

"This is intolerable!" he exclaimed. "You are wrecking your life for an insane scruple. Child, listen! Tell me nothing whatever! Give yourself to me! No one shall ever take you away again. That I swear. And I will make you so happy, dear. Only trust me!"

But Mab covered her face as if to shut out a forbidden sight.

"Big Bear, I mustn't," she said, with a sharp catch in her voice. "I've done very wrong already. But I mustn't do this. Indeed I mustn't. It's real good of you. And I shall remember it all my life. I think you are the most charitable man I ever met, considering what you must think of me."

"Think!" said Merefleet, and there was a note of deep passion in his voice. "I don't think. I want you just as you are,--just as you are. Don't you know yet that I love you enough for that?"

Mab rose slowly at the words. She was very pale, and he could see her trembling as she stood.

"Big Bear," she said, "I've got something to say to you. What I told you yesterday was quite true. And I'm in great trouble about it. I thought we were going to Heaven together. That was how I came to say it. But it was very wicked of me to be so impulsive. I've done other things that were wicked in just the same way. It's just my nature. And p'r'aps you'll try to forgive me when you think how I truly meant it. I'm telling you this because I want you to do something for me. It'll be real difficult, Big Bear. Only you're so strong."

She faltered a little and paused to recover herself. Merefleet was standing close to her. He could have taken her into his arms. But something held him back. Moreover he knew the nature of her request before she uttered it.

"Will you do what I ask you?" she said suddenly, facing him directly. "Will you, Big Bear?"

Merefleet did not answer her.

She went on quickly.

"My dear, it's hard for me, too, though I'm bad and I deserve to suffer."

Her voice broke and Merefleet made a convulsive movement towards her. But he checked himself. And Mab ended in a choked whisper with an appealing hand against his breast.

"Just go right away!" she said. "Take up your life where it was before you met me! Will you, dear? It--will make it easier for me if you will."

A dead silence followed the low words. Then, moved by a marvellous influence which worked upon him irresistibly, Merefleet stooped and put the slight hand to his lips. He did not understand. He was as far from reading the riddle as he had been when he entered. But his love for this woman conquered his desire. He had thought to win an empire. He left the room a beaten slave.

 

CHAPTER XV

Men said that Bernard Merefleet, the gold-king, was curiously changed when once more he went among them. Something of the old grimness which had earned for him his _sobriquet_ yet clung to his manner. But he was undeniably softer than of yore. There was an odd gentleness about him. Women said that he was marvellously improved. Among such as had known him in New York he became a favourite, little as he attempted to court favour.

Towards the end of the year he went down to the Midlands to stay with his friend Perry Clinton. They had not met for several years, and Clinton, who had married in the interval, also thought him changed.

"Is it prosperity or adversity that has made you so tame, dear fellow?" he asked him, as they sat together over dessert one night.

"Adversity," said Merefleet, smiling faintly. "I'm getting old, Perry; and there's no one to take care of me. And I find that money is vanity."

Clinton understood.

"Better go round the world," he said. "That's the best cure for that."

But Merefleet shook his head.

"It's my own fault," he said presently. "I've chucked away my life to the gold-demon. And now there is nothing left to me. You were wise in your generation. You may thank your stars, Perry, that when I wanted you to join me, you had the sense to refuse. When I heard you were married I called you a fool. But--I know better now."

He paused. He had been speaking with a force that was almost passionate. When he continued his tone had changed.

"That is why you find me a trifle less surly than I used to be," he said. "I used to hate my fellow-creatures. And now I would give all my money in exchange for a few disinterested friends. I'm sick of my lonely life. But for all that, I shall live and die alone."

"You make too much of it," said Clinton.

"Perhaps. But you can't expect a man who has been into Paradise to be exactly happy when he is thrust outside."

Clinton took up the evening paper without comment. Merefleet had never before spoken so openly to him. He realised that the man's loneliness must oppress him heavily indeed thus to master his reserve.

"What news?" said Merefleet, after a pause.

"Nothing," said Clinton. "Plague on the Continent. Railway mishap on the Great Northern. Another American Disaster."

"What's that?" said Merefleet with a touch of interest.

"Electric car accident. Ralph Warrender among the victims."

"Warrender! What! Is he dead?"

"Yes. Killed instantaneously. Did you know him?"

"I have met him in business. I wasn't intimate with him."

"Isn't he the man whose first wife was killed in a railway accident?" said Clinton reflectively, glad to have diverted Merefleet's thoughts. "I thought so. I met her once and was so smitten with her that I purchased her portrait forthwith. The most marvellous woman's face I ever saw. The man I got it from spoke of her with the most appalling enthusiasm. 'Mab Warrender!' he said. 'If she is not the loveliest woman in U.S., I guess the next one would strike us blind.' Here! I'll show it you. Netta wants me to frame it."

Clinton got up and took a book from a cupboard. Merefleet was watching him with strained eyes. His heart was thumping as if it would choke him. He rose as Clinton laid the picture before him, and steadied himself unconsciously by his friend's shoulder.

Clinton glanced at him in some surprise.

"Hullo!" he said. "A friend of yours, was she? My dear fellow, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

But Merefleet hung over the picture with fascinated eyes. And his answer came with a curiously strained laugh, that somehow rang exultant.

"Yes, a friend of mine, old chap," he said. "It's a wonderful face, isn't it? But it doesn't do her justice. I shouldn't frame it if I were you."

 

CHAPTER XVI

"Isn't he a monster?" said Mab, as she sat before the kitchen fire in Quiller's humble dwelling with Mrs. Quiller's three months' old baby in her arms. "I guess he'd fetch a prize at a baby show, Mrs. Quiller. Isn't he just too knowing for anything?"

"He's the best of the bunch, miss," said Mrs. Quiller proudly. "The other eight, they weren't nothing special. But this one, he be a beauty, though it ain't me as should say it. I'm sure it's very good of you, miss, to spend the time you do over him. He'd be an ungrateful little rogue if he didn't get on."

"It's real kind of you to make me welcome," Mab said, with her cheek against the baby's head, "I don't know what I'd do if you didn't."

"Ah! Poor dear! You must be lonesome now the gentleman's gone," said Mrs. Quiller commiseratingly.

"Oh, no," said Mab lightly. "Not so very. I couldn't ask my cousin to give up all his time to me you know. Besides, he would come to see me at any time if I really wanted him."

"Ah!" Mrs. Quiller shook her head. "But it ain't the same. You wants a home of your own, my dear. That's what it is. What's become of t'other gentleman what used to be down here?"

Mab almost laughed at the artlessness of this query.

"Mr. Merefleet, you mean? I don't know. I guess he's making some more money."

At this point old Quiller, who had been toddling about in the November sunshine outside, pushed open the door in a state of breathless excitement.

"Here's Master Bernard coming, missie," he announced.

Mab started to her feet, her face in a sudden, marvellous glow.

"There now!" said Mrs. Quiller, relieving her of her precious burden. "Who'd have thought it? You'd better go and talk to him."

And Mab stepped out into the soft sunshine. It fell around her in a flood and dazzled her. She stood quite still and waited, till out of the brilliance someone came to her and took her hand. The waves were dashing loudly on the shore. The south wind raced by with a warm rushing. The whole world seemed to laugh. She closed her eyes and laughed with it.

"Is it you, Big Bear?" she said.

And Merefleet's voice answered her.

"Yes," it said. "I have come for you in earnest this time. You won't send me away again?"

Mab lifted her face with a glad smile.

"I guess there's no need," she said. "My dear, I'll come now."

And they went away together in the sunlight.

* * * * *

"And now I guess I'll tell you the story of the first Mrs. Ralph Warrender," said Mab, some time later. "I won't say anything about him, because he's dead, and if you can't speak well of the dead,--well it's better not to speak at all. But she was miserable with him. And after her baby died--it just wasn't endurable. Then came that railway accident, and she was in it. There were a lot of folks killed, burnt to death most of them. But she escaped, and then the thought came to her just to lie low for a bit and let him think she was dead.

"Oh, it was a real wicked thing to do. But she was nearly demented with trouble. And she did it. She managed to get away, too, in spite of her lovely face. An old negro woman helped her. And she came to England and went to a cousin of hers who had been good to her, whom she knew she could trust--just a plain, square-jawed Englishman, Big Bear, like you in some respects--not smart, oh no--only strong as iron. And he kept her secret, though he didn't like it a bit. And he gave her some money of hers that he had inherited, to live on. Which was funny, wasn't it?"

Mab paused to laugh.

"And then another man came along, a great, surly, fogheaded Englishman, who made love to her till she was nearly driven crazy. For though Warrender had married again before she could stop him, she wasn't free. But she couldn't tell him so for the other woman's sake. It doesn't matter now. It was a dreadful tangle once. And she felt real bad about it. But it's come out quite simply. And no one will ever know.

"Now, I'll tell you a secret, Big Bear, about the woman you know of. You must put your head down for I'll have to whisper. That's the way. Now! She's just madly in love with you, Big Bear. And she is quite, quite free to tell you so. There! And I reckon she's not Death's property any more. She's just--yours."

The narrative ended in Merefleet's arms.

* * * * *

A few weeks later Quiller the younger looked up from a newspaper with a grin.

"Mr. Merefleet's married our little missie, dad," he announced. "I saw it coming t'other day."

And old Quiller looked up with a gleam of intelligence on his wrinkled face.

"Why!" he said, with slow triumph. "If that ain't what I persuaded him for to do, long, long ago! He's a sensible lad, is Master Bernard."

A measure of approval which Merefleet would doubtless have appreciated.

[The end]
Ethel May Dell's short story: Death's Property

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