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