Besides all her other anxieties, there is still one further question
that has been exercising Norah's mind--what has become of her cousin
Patrick? For she has not seen him since they landed together from
the destroyer which brought them all back to the base. She and Netta
were taken at once to the island where Mrs. Shaw presided over the
hut, as the one place where they could be cared for by members of
their own sex. But as for Patrick, he was disposed of somewhere
else. Norah does not know where; so now she finds her opportunity to
ask.
"Mr. Dimsdale, can you give me any news of my cousin, Mr. Sheridan?"
"Mr. Sheridan? Oh, he is in the Depôt ship for the present. I
believe it was his wish to go South to-morrow by himself, and to send
for you ladies as soon as you are well enough to undertake the
journey. I believe the plan is altered now--I should say, I believe
he has made a different arrangement since this morning. I'm afraid I
really must be getting away, if you will be good enough to excuse me.
I am very busy this afternoon; heaps of work waiting for me in my
office."
Netta raised her eyes to him--and very pretty grey eyes they are,
too, and anxiously enquires:
"You have seen my brother, then, have you? When was it you saw him?
How was he? Did he ask for us?"
Dimsdale finds it a little difficult to reply to all these questions
at once; but manages to say:
"Yes, and I expect you would like to see him too. Shall I go and
tell him so? I can go right away and do it now, if you like. I
can--easily. I have nothing particular to do this afternoon."
"Oh, no," cries Netta, shrinking from the ordeal of having to face
her terrible brother, "don't let him come here!"
The secretary eyes her very sympathetically, and is evidently
affected by her distress.
"He needn't come, if you're not feeling up to it," he replies
encouragingly.
"Yes, that is it," Netta tells him, glad to be given a ready-made
explanation of what might seem an unnatural reluctance to see her
brother. "I am not strong enough just now. Perhaps it would be
better for him to go on by himself as he suggests."
"But _I_ want to see him," Norah breaks in, "I _must_ see him, and as
soon as possible."
It really is rather trying for poor Dimsdale to arrange matters so as
to please these two young ladies who hold such very opposite and very
exacting views! He can only follow the line of least resistance, and
promise the last speaker exactly what she asks. This is the easiest
way out of it for him, and so he proceeds to tell Norah that she
shall certainly have her wish and see her cousin at once.
"Not to-day; not to-day!" the agitated Netta appeals.
"Very well then, to-morrow? To-morrow morning? I'll arrange it. I
really _must_ go and find the admiral; I am sure he wants me. Some
very important business!"
"Well, Mr. Dimsdale," Norah tells him, "if you will please arrange
for my cousin to come here to-morrow morning I shall be very
grateful."
"I'll go and see about it this very minute," answers the much
harassed secretary, seeing at last a chance of escape: "I'll go right
off to the Depôt ship at once. Good morning--good afternoon, I mean.
Good afternoon!"
And, after a few hasty strides in quite the wrong direction, he
recovers himself sufficiently to know where he wants to go, and turns
about, disappearing presently towards the landing-place.
Norah follows him with laughing eyes. "Poor man!" she whispers,
smiling.
But Netta has a haunting fear which does not allow her to share in
her cousin's amusement. She turns to her at once, gasping out:
"Oh, Norah, at last I've got a chance to speak to you! Tell me, did
you do it, did you do it?"
No need to specify further her meaning. Norah knows, and at once
gives her answer.
"No, Netta, I did not. I meant to do it--indeed, up to the very last
moment I fully intended to; but then I--I altered my mind!"
"Oh, thank God! But--why?"
"I do not know. No, that is not quite true; I do know why. Let me
at least have the honesty to speak the truth to you, even though it
is to my own shame! A woman who had the fixed intention of becoming
a wholesale murderess ought not to shrink from putting off a little
of her maiden modesty. I did not set the bomb, because of--because
of one man."
"What man, Norah? That young officer who was so kind in looking
after you?"
"Yes. He was so good to me, and so merry-hearted. And all the time
while he was taking care of me with such tenderness--with his gay,
light chatter, which I could see well enough was only meant to keep
me from breaking down--all that time I kept saying to myself, _I am
going to kill you soon; in a few hours you will lie lying a burnt and
mangled corpse at the bottom of the sea; and it is my hand that is
going to send you there!_"
Netta gives a low moan, burying her face in her hands; only looking
up again after a pause to say:
"Horrible! I know! _I_ felt like that almost from the beginning,
even before we started out. But you have always been so much more
strong-minded than I am. I quite thought that _you_ would have
allowed nothing to hinder you--nothing, no one!"
"No one but this man alone could have done so, I believe," solemnly
answers the other girl.
"What! Do you mean----? You _fell in love_ with him, then? Norah!
_You_!"
"I do not know. Oh, why do you ask me that question! But I will
make a clean breast of it all, to you. Yes, I think I did. But, all
the same, it was not on his account alone that I held my hand at the
last moment."
"But I thought you said----?"
"I mean--yes, I _would_ have refused for his sake alone; but it was
not _only_ that. It was--yes, I suppose it must have been love;
love, that made me wake up and see what a terrible thing it was that
I was about to do. And then, all those other lives suddenly seemed
to me just as precious as"--very softly come her closing words--"as
his!"
"But what became of the bomb?" enquires Netta, who not being in love
herself has now become the more practical-minded of the two.
"Ah," Norah replies despondingly, "that is just what I would give
anything to know! Patrick snatched it from me, just as I was going
to fling it overboard, and at that very moment the officers came into
the room. Whether Patrick was able to put it down somewhere
afterwards, I cannot tell. I am so afraid he _may_ have found an
opportunity. But I hope not; indeed, I am almost sure he did not."
"You are sure of that, you say? Oh, I am so glad!"
"No, not _quite_ sure. That is just the haunting dread I still feel.
And, that, too, is just why I must see him, to find out definitely."
"But haven't you asked him already?"
"No, I tried to, but he would not speak to me on board the destroyer.
He is angry with me, and looks on me as a traitress to the cause--as
I suppose I am. But he _must_ tell me what he did!--_Look!_"
Her voice has suddenly altered to one of intense alarm and surprise.
"_Look!_" she repeats, clutching at her cousin's arm, and gazing
wildly down the path. "It is----"
Netta has seen too; and she also needs no second glance to recognise
the man who has approached unnoticed until he is quite near them.
It is Alick Stapleton.