Again on the ketch the inevitable reaction overtook him. He had spoken
of Ellen's death to no one until now, through all the years when he
had been a wanderer on the edge of his world, and he bitterly
regretted his reference to it. In speaking he had betrayed his
resolution of solitude. Life, against all his instinct, his wishes,
had reached out and caught him, however lightly, in its tentacles.
The least surrender, he realized, the slightest opening of his
interest, would bind him with a multitude of attachments; the octopus
that he dreaded, uncoiling arm after arm, would soon hold him again, a
helpless victim for the fury Chance.
He had made a disastrous error in following his curiosity, the
insistent scent of the wild oranges, to the house where Millie had
advanced on the dim portico. His return there had been the inevitable
result of the first mistake, and the rest had followed with a fatal
ease. Whatever had been the deficiences of the past twelve years he
had been free from new complications, fresh treacheries. Now, with
hardly a struggle, he was falling back into the old trap.
The wind died away absolutely, and a haze gathered delicately over the
sea, thickening through the afternoon, and turned rosy by the
declining sun. The shore had faded from sight.
A sudden energy leaped through John Woolfolk and rang out in an abrupt
summons to Halvard. "Get up anchor," he commanded.
Poul Halvard, at the mainstay, remarked tentatively: "There's not a
capful of wind."
The wide calm, Woolfolk thought, was but a part of a general
conspiracy against his liberty, his memories. "Get the anchor up," he
repeated harshly. "We'll go under the engine." The sudden jarring of
the _Gar's_ engine sounded muffled in a shut space like the flushed
heart of a shell. The yacht moved forward, with a wake like folded
gauze, into a shimmer of formless and pure color.
John Woolfolk sat at the wheel, motionless except for an occasional
scant shifting of his hands. He was sailing by compass; the patent
log, trailing behind on its long cord, maintained a constant, jerking
register on its dial. He had resolutely banished all thought save that
of navigation. Halvard was occupied forward, clearing the deck of the
accumulations of the anchorage. When he came aft Woolfolk said
shortly: "No mess."
The haze deepened and night fell, and the sailor lighted and placed
the port and starboard lights. The binnacle lamp threw up a dim,
orange radiance on Woolfolk's somber countenance. He continued for
three and four and then five hours at the wheel, while the smooth
clamor of the engine, a slight quiver of the hull, alone marked their
progress through an invisible element.
Once more he had left life behind. This had more the aspect of a
flight than at any time previous. It was, obscurely, an unpleasant
thought, and he endeavored--unsuccessfully--to put it from him. He was
but pursuing the course he had laid out, following his necessary,
inflexible determination.
His mind for a moment turned independently back to Millie with her
double burden of fear. He had left her without a word, isolated with
Nicholas, concealing with a blank smile his enigmatic being, and with
her impotent parent.
Well, he was not responsible for her, he had paid for the privilege of
immunity; he had but listened to her story, volunteering nothing. John
Woolfolk wished, however, that he had said some final, useful word to
her before going. He was certain that, looking for the ketch and
unexpectedly finding the bay empty, she would suffer a pang, if only
of loneliness. In the short while that he had been there she had come
to depend on him for companionship, for relief from the insuperable
monotony of her surroundings; for, perhaps, still more. He wondered
what that more might contain. He thought of Millie at the present
moment, probably lying awake, steeped in dread. His flight now assumed
the aspect of an act of cowardice, of desertion. He rehearsed wearily
the extenuations of his position, but without any palpable relief.
An even more disturbing possibility lodged in his thoughts--he was not
certain that he did not wish to be actually back with Millie again. He
felt the quick pressure of her fingers on his arm as she jumped from
the tender; her magnetic personality hung about him like an aroma.
Cloaked in mystery, pale and irresistible, she appealed to him from
the edge of the wild oranges.
This, he told himself again, was but the manner in which a ruthless
Nature set her lures; it was the deceptive vestment of romance. He
held the ketch relentlessly on her course, with--now--all his
thoughts, his inclinations, returning to Millie Stope. In a final,
desperate rally of his scattering resolution he told himself that he
was unfaithful to the tragic memory of Ellen. This last stay broke
abruptly, and left him defenseless against the tyranny of his mounting
desires. Strangely he felt the sudden pressure of a stirring wind upon
his face; and, almost with an oath, he put the wheel sharply over and
the _Gar_ swung about.
Poul Halvard had been below, by inference asleep; but when the yacht
changed her course he immediately appeared on deck. He moved aft, but
Woolfolk made no explanation, the sailor put no questions. The wind
freshened, grew sustained. Woolfolk said:
"Make sail."
Soon after, the mainsail rose, a ghostly white expanse on the night.
John Woolfolk trimmed the jigger, shut off the engine; and, moving
through a sudden, vast hush, they retraced their course. The bay was
ablaze with sunlight, the morning well advanced, when the ketch
floated back to her anchorage under the oleanders.