II

There was no doubt about the weather; as soon as the harbour was left

behind, the ship began to sway and shiver sickeningly. I chatted for a

while with one of the stewards; he told me uncomfortingly that a storm

in July was rather rare, but that when it did come it was usually

severe. All the time we were talking I could hear the wind rising to

gale ferocity; there were also intermittent rumblings of thunder. I felt

an obligation to look after Helen, despite her rudeness to me, so I

climbed on deck and met her dragging a deck-chair along one of the

companionways; she handed it to me rather sulkily, remarking that she

was looking for a spot that was better sheltered from the rain and

spray. I said I would find one for her, and we staggered with difficulty

along the heaving decks. With the port-lights falling on them, the waves

looked like rolls of dark moorland peaked with snow. Then, quite

suddenly, one of them lifted over the edge and mounted towards us in a

huge black wall; we just managed to escape its full onrush, and were

immediately and peremptorily ordered below by a ship's officer.

After that the terrible became merely the sordid. In the lower saloons

the occupants were horridly inert and comatose; many were engulfed in

the varying throes of _mal de mer_; most were grimly unhappy. The smells

of oil and stale cooking were all-pervading; intermittent crashes told

of casualties in the pantries; the ship's engines groaned like the

breathing of a pneumonia sufferer. All this I relate, not as descriptive

padding, but to show how force of circumstances drove Helen and me

together that night. I suggested first of all that she should share

June's cabin, but after visiting it and finding June comfortably asleep,

she returned to say that she would rather do anything than lie down.

"Then," I said, "there remains the bar. It's probably the most cheerful

spot on the whole boat, and French beer isn't a bad sort of tonic."

She said: "You'll have to take me then," and I nodded and took her.

We hung on to the counter and heard the bartender being violently sick

behind the scenes. And she said: "I suppose you think you're heaping

coals of fire on my head?"

"How so?"

"By being kind to me after I've been rude to you."

"Well--you certainly _have_ been rude to me, haven't you?"

"Yes," she replied simply. And after a pause she added: "I rather loathe

the sentimental way you assume that everything else is going to be

forgotten just because of what's happened to Geoffrey."

"Well?"

"I suppose you thought I was going to welcome you with open arms on

Liverpool landing-stage, eh?"

"Not in the least. I only hoped that our desire to help Geoffrey would

enable us to treat each other civilly."

Her eyes flashed. "Yes, that sounds as if I'm in the wrong, doesn't it?

But let me tell you this--that though I _am_ going to help Geoffrey, my

feelings towards him remain exactly as they were before."

"And what were they?"

She said quietly: "I don't like him. I don't care what you think of me

for saying it--it's the honest truth. And I'm not sentimental enough to

think that a railway-accident can make any difference."

The beer came then, and a sudden lurch of the boat sent half of it

spilling over our hands. The bartender, white-faced and dishevelled,

retired again to endure his sufferings in solitude. She went on, more

quickly: "Oh, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking of Geoffrey

as _you_ know him--how decent he's been to you, and all that. He _has_

been decent to you, I'll admit--he's been decent enough to me in _that_

sort of way. But--oh, Hilton--I'm friends with you again now, and I must

tell you--he's not _straight_--you know what I mean, don't you? He's not

the sort of man you can _trust_!"

"Good heavens, I think I'd trust my life to him----"

She interrupted: "I daresay you would. I daresay a lot of people

would.... Perhaps I ought to have said that he's not the sort of man his

wife can trust."

And then, while the boat rolled so badly that once or twice we were

almost battered from wall to wall, she told me. Oddly, perhaps, I didn't

realize her complete meaning till she was half-way through--not till she

said: "If he only had that one fault in the world (and perhaps he has),

it would be enough to make me despise him--for I value faithfulness

higher than anything."

_Faithfulness_! Then she knew ...? _Did_ she know? ... Could it possibly

have come to her knowledge already ...?

She was telling me how, after her marriage, she had first of all trusted

him implicitly. "There were several incidents that made me wonder a

little, but I made myself believe that he was _good_. I knew, of course,

that women flung themselves at him--_that_ wasn't his fault. And

besides, he trusted me so much--he never seemed to bother where I went

or who went with me. I loathed the idea of being jealous.... And so it

went on--for a few years; I just had faith in him--in _us_--and if

sometimes I got to hear scraps of gossip, I ignored them.... Then came

an affair I couldn't possibly ignore, and there was a fearful row. I

nearly left him, but he gave his promise, and I said I'd try to trust

him again."

She said, rather pathetically: "You say you'll _try_ to trust somebody

again, but you don't very often succeed. Personally, I don't think you

ever can--it's such a far deeper matter than repentance or forgiveness.

There are some people who have it in them to do certain things, and

others who haven't--and if you find out that a man belongs to the first

kind, then it's final--don't you think so? ... Anyhow, I stayed on with

Geoffrey, and, so far as I know, he kept his promise till last year.

Then I found he'd been spending week-ends with a girl at Rotterdam....

Do you know, it didn't surprise me a bit.... It didn't even hurt me....

I just felt that I hadn't a scrap of love for him, and that it didn't

matter.... I didn't trouble to mention it even; I just let things go on

as if nothing had happened, and then, when the fine weather came, I took

June with me to America.... And I didn't ever intend to come back."

"But June--does _she_ know all this?"

"She knows nothing."

"You would have had to tell her."

"I daresay.... I hadn't made any plans about that. I just made up my

mind to leave Geoffrey and never see him again. But of course the

accident has altered _that_. I shall stay with him now, but I can't

pretend to _like_ him any more."

"That seems a hard thing to say."

"Perhaps it _is_ hard. You must remember I'm French, and that makes me

face the facts as they are."

I said that, however little affection she had for her husband, she

wouldn't be able to stop herself from admiring his pluck and

cheerfulness. She replied: "It won't matter whether I admire him or not.

Admiration is nothing."

"And pity--is _that_ nothing?

"I have pity for anyone in misfortune. It is pity that will make me stay

with him and help him."

"Perhaps, anyhow, the motive doesn't matter so much. It's what you do

that will count, for it's possible--rather more than possible, I'm

afraid--that he'll never be able to walk again."

That stirred her, I could see. She whispered, tremulously: "Is that

really true?"--and when I nodded slowly, she just bit her lip and said

nothing ... nothing at all. It was as if she _couldn't_ speak. There

came just then a terrific peal of thunder, vibrant above the muffled

thudding of the engines, and I think I spoke some word or phrase of

reassurance. But she just stared at me blankly--stared _through_ me

almost; and then, in a queerly casual voice, remarked: "That was loud. I

think I'll go down to June's cabin and see if it wakened her...."

She went out, staggering against the roll and pitch of the boat, and not

till we were calm in Calais Harbour did I see her again.