A QUESTION IS ASKED
Thyra’s nature was a complex one. She was the embodiment of youth and
health. She was essentially an outdoor girl. She was very good to look
upon, and every man who saw her wished to see her oftener.
In her soul she possessed that beautiful sense of reserve and personal
isolation which is innate in the best type of woman, an isolation
which she was not only prepared to surrender lavishly—when the time
came—but to surrender once and for all. She had the gold to give,
but she would not fritter away her treasure in the small change of
passing flirtations. A woman’s consciousness of isolation is her only
protection. No man dared to look into the big grey eyes of Thyra and
think for an instant of familiarity. The respect that women of her
character earn of men is their great reward. Man is a savage barbarian,
and has no “bloom” to knock off, but his homage is unbounded to the
beautiful woman who has many admirers, but who, without effort, stands
apart as something almost sacred. That homage is given to the woman who
keeps herself isolated and alone in the hidden chambers of her soul
until she meets the one man who holds for her “the key of darkness and
of morn.”
Such a woman—sweet, lovable, and yet isolated—was Jorgen Berentsen’s
daughter.
In the elegant little fumoir aft, a cabin hung with dark green silk,
with parquet flooring, and with a real fireplace where coal could be
burnt in winter, and cosy corners as though one were on land, Peter
Sundt and his guest were smoking.
Jorgen Berentsen’s host had apparently been asking a serious question,
for he was seated in silence, his cigar between his teeth, his eyes
fixed upon the silk-panelled wall opposite, his big, hard hand stroking
his grey beard.
“Whatever you may say, Jorgen,” exclaimed the red-faced man at last,
his gaze fixed upon the harbour-master of Vardo, “I shall go to her
to-night—now—to make one last appeal.”
“My girl has views of her own upon marriage—especially so soon after
Paul’s death,” responded his friend. “Suppose she again refuses?”
Old Sundt’s manner changed in an instant.
“Refuses! She will not refuse this time. She will consent to marry
me—for her father’s sake,” he said meaningly.
“You—you would tell her!” gasped the other, starting from his chair.
“Jorgen,” said the other very quietly, “I love your daughter—and I
intend to marry her.”
“You have said that before,” exclaimed the captain in a low tone of
distress.
“You have never pleaded my cause!” snapped the ruler of the Arctic
fisheries.
“I allow my daughter to act exactly as her heart dictates,” was his
slow but determined response.
“Heart? Rubbish! Marriage is a mere matter of convenience. Would it not
be better for her to be my wife, and wealthy, than to live with you up
in that out-of-the-world corner, where she sees nobody except sailors
and fishermen? You—too—would be better off in the south, in a nice
house with a garden. There’s a little villa just outside Ragusa which
belongs to me, and in which you might live, so as to be close to us.”
“Peter!” exclaimed the bluff old fellow, looking straight into his
face, “why tempt me like this? I have told you and I repeat my words,
that I will not attempt to use any influence with Thyra. She married
the man she loved—and tragedy was the result. Let her act now as
she thinks best. What affection can a girl in her present pitiable
circumstances have in her heart?”
“I don’t want her affection now,” he declared; “that will come in due
course. You will remain here and give me permission to go and speak to
her.”
“She will refuse. Why trouble her?” queried her father, who, be it
said, had no great love for this man who had risen from a common
fisherman to the position he now held. He knew, alas! the hundreds of
lives that had been sacrificed in those boiling seas in the gathering
of the harvest which had made old Peter Sundt the wealthy man he was.
He knew well, too, the hardness of the man’s heart, and how, times
without number, he had refused succour to the poor widows and little
children of the men who had been swallowed up by the sea in his
service. He was a callous man, whose one thought was money, and from
whose heart every spark of human sympathy had long ago been crushed
in his desperate fight for fortune. Sitting there at his ease, the
splendid diamond glistening upon his coarse, red hand, and his yachting
cap pulled over his eyes as he lay back smoking, he presented the
picture of the typical parvenu.
“Why are you so certain of her refusal, Jorgen?” he asked, removing the
cigar from his hard mouth. “Her love match brought her only sorrow.
I can’t think what possessed you to allow her to marry that man.
Recollect what our inquiries have revealed!”
“Yes,” sighed the captain; “but she loved him—therefore I gave my
consent.”
“And brought about her unhappiness,” he added grimly.
“I was not to know. It was not my fault.”
“No; you were not to know that Paul Grinevitch had been met at Vardo by
a man who was his worst enemy, and that he would be followed by him to
Christiania,” he said bitterly.
“Then you still maintain your theory?” asked Berentsen. “You still
think that the hand that struck down Grinevitch was the Englishman’s?”
“There seems no doubt. The result of our inquiries all point to it
unmistakably.”
“I confess I am not yet convinced.”
“Recollect what his friend the doctor told me when I called upon him.
He was full of suspicion at the time. There is no doubt that on that
fatal afternoon Thyra met the Englishman, and—well, we may easily guess
the rest.”
“Then you believe that Jervoise went in secret to the hotel and killed
his enemy?”
“Yes, of that I feel confident,” exclaimed Peter Sundt. “He had a
double motive—first revenge, and secondly, by killing Thyra’s husband,
he removed the object of his jealousy. He was deeply in love with
her—he admitted that to Doctor Odd.”
After a few moments’ silence, Jorgen said:
“I don’t think we need discuss that painful affair any further, Peter.
The police have made every inquiry, but have failed to establish any
clue to the assassin.”
“Because they are ignorant of many of the true facts—facts which we
ourselves have discovered. The police of Christiania are utterly
incompetent—a set of fools!”
“If you are so confident that your theory is the correct one, why did
you not go to Scotland Yard when in London, and place your evidence
before them?”
“And cause the arrest of Richard Jervoise?”
“Yes.”
“Because, my dear Jorgen, I wished to save you and Thyra from
disgrace,” was the man’s answer. “Cannot you see that by such a course
Thyra’s secret meeting with Jervoise would have been exposed—that her
conspiracy with the Englishman would have been revealed?”
“What!” cried the captain; “do you actually accuse my daughter of
conniving at her husband’s death?”
“Of course not, my dear friend. You quite misunderstand me. I only
point out what the world would naturally conclude from the facts,” he
answered. “But, as you wish, let’s drop the painful subject. Let us
commence afresh. I will go to her, and hear her decision.”
“It will be as before,” declared the captain. “I spoke to her only this
afternoon before we came aboard.”
“Well, what did she say?”
“That her decision was irrevocable.”
Peter Sundt slowly knocked the ash from his cigar, and then drained his
small glass of Benedictine.
“A very foolish declaration, Jorgen—as far as you are concerned.”
“Ah! Then you still throw the onus upon me, eh?”
“Have I not told you a dozen times? Have you not had sufficient
opportunity? Remember, you tried once to evade me. I do not forget
that!”
“You are as inexorable to-night as you ever were, then?” remarked
Berentsen in a deep, earnest voice.
“Quite. I am not a man to depart from my word. You know me well
enough,” was the answer of the other.
“Very well, go to her,” exclaimed the bluff old whaler. “Go and speak
to her if you wish. I am prepared to abide by my girl’s decision!” And
he set his teeth, and gazed out through the porthole upon the moonlit
sea.
“But you say she will refuse,” the elder man exclaimed. “What then?”
“Then act as you have already threatened,” he cried with a sudden
boldness. “Surely you cannot think that I will be a party to compelling
my child to marry you in order to save myself! No! I will never do
that, Peter, never! My girl shall choose her own husband.”
“She chose before—and a pretty mess she made of it!” sneered the other.
“If she will marry me I’ll give her all the freedom and the means she
desires. She shall have a life of happiness and pleasure in whatever
circle of society she desires. Birth counts for nothing in these days,
when barons of ancient lineage have to earn their bread as waiters and
counts become hairdressers. No; it is men like myself who rule society,
and rule the world. The only thing that tells nowadays is hard cash. I,
who began life as a fisherboy, have entertained royalty on board this
very yacht, and more than one royal highness has dined at my table.” He
laughed. “And why? Merely because even those of royal blood bow down
before the golden calf and turn their backs upon the penniless portion
of their own aristocracy. Oh, life is an amusing game with men like
myself, I can assure you,” he added.
“Amusing, because you hold men’s destinies in the hollow of your
hand—just as you hold mine!” Jorgen remarked in a hoarse voice of
bitter reproach.
“Mine is a fair bargain, surely?”
“In which either my child or myself pays the penalty!”
“When a man commits a folly he must expect to bear the punishment,” was
Sundt’s abrupt reply, as he put down his cigar-end and rose, adding: “I
am going to her. If you wish to precede me, and to speak to her on my
behalf, you are at liberty to do so.”
“I shall not,” Jorgen blurted forth. “I have already told you
that she will refuse, and that I am ready to accept the burden of
responsibility.”
“Remember that there will be no drawing back,” said Peter in earnest
warning. “I gave you full opportunity.”
“And I have not, and will not, avail myself of it. If you have marked
me out for ruin, as you seem to have done—well, so be it. My child
shall never be forced into marriage with you in order to effect my
escape.”
“Good!” exclaimed the red-faced man, straightening his cravat before
the mirror. “Remember, Jorgen, that upon Thyra’s decision to-night
rests your own future.”
And, with an expression of dark determination, he strode out upon
the deck, forward to where sat the girl-widow in the long chair, the
brilliant moonlight falling upon her, bright almost as day.
At her side he halted, bent over her, and uttered a word.
But she turned her white face from him, without response.
So he straightened himself and stood in silence, his hand resting upon
the back of her chair.
That moment was the crucial one of Thyra’s life. Her decision meant
either her own unhappiness or to her beloved father—even though she
were ignorant of it—disaster worse than death itself.