"Don't bother about names just now," she interrupted; "I know who
you're speaking to."
"Do you believe," I continued, looking steadfastly at her, "that Bertha
Nugent loves me?"
"I don't know," she said, "that it's exactly my business to give this
information, but under the circumstances I take it on myself to say
that she most certainly does. And I tell you, and you may tell her if
you like, that I would not have said this to you if I hadn't believed
this thing ought to be clinched the minute there was a chance to do it.
It's been hanging off and on long enough. Love you? Why, bless my
soul, sir, she's been thinking of nothing else for the past two or
three days but the coming of the postman, expecting a letter from you,
not considering that you didn't know where to address her, or that it
was rather scant time for a letter to come from La Guayra, where
Captain Stearns would take you if he succeeded in picking you up."
"The whole affair had a scanty air about it," said Captain Guy. "At
least, that's the way I look at it."
"You've never said anything like that before," said Mary, rather
sharply.
"Of course not," replied the captain. "I wanted to keep you as merry
and cheerful as I could. And besides, I didn't say I had thought there
was no chance of Mr. Rockwell's turning up. I only said I considered it
a little scantish."
"Love you?" continued Mary Phillips; "I should say so. I should have
brought her on deck to wave her handkerchief to you and kiss her
hand--perhaps, when you blew the state of your feelings through a
trumpet; but she wasn't strong enough. She was a pretty weak woman in
body and mind about that time. But from the moment I told her, and she
knew that you not only loved her, but were willing to say so, she began
to mend. And how she did talk about you, and how she did long that the
two ships might come together again! She kept asking me what I thought
about the condition of your vessel and whether it would be like to sink
if a storm came on. I could not help thinking that, as far as I knew
anything about ships, you'd be likely to float for weeks after we'd
gone down, but I didn't say that to her. And then she began to wonder
if you had understood that she had received your message and was glad
to get it. And I told her over and over and over again that you must
have heard me, for I screamed my very loudest. I am very glad that I
didn't know that you only caught those two words."
"Dear girl!" I ejaculated. "And did she send me a message on a
life-preserver?"
"You mean to say that you got it?" cried Mary Phillips.
"No," said I; "it floated away from me. What was it?"
"I got up that little scheme," said Mary Phillips, "to quiet her. I
told her that a letter might be floated to you that way, and that,
anyway, it would do no harm to try. I don't know what she wrote, but
she must have said a good deal, for she took a long time about it. I
wrapped it up perfectly water-tight. She made the flag herself out of
one of her own handkerchiefs with her initial in the corner. She said
she thought you would like that."
"Oh, that it had come to me!" I cried.
"I wish from the bottom of my soul that it had," said Mary,
compassionately. "It would have done you a lot of good on that lonely
ship."
"Instead of which," observed Captain Guy, "some shark probably
swallowed it, and little good it did him."
"It put a lot of affection and consideration into him," said Mary, a
little brusquely, "and there are other creatures connected with the sea
who wouldn't be hurt by that sort of thing."
"There's a shot into me!" cried the captain. "Don't do it again. I cry
quarter!"
"I must go," I said, rising; "I can wait no longer."
"Well," said Mary, "you may not be much too soon, if you go slowly."
"But before I go," I said, "tell me this: Why did she not send me some
word from Lisbon? Why did she not give Captain Stearns a line on a
piece of paper or some message?"
"A line! a message!" exclaimed Mary. "She sent you a note; she sent you
a dozen messages by Captain Stearns."
"And I'll wager a month's pay," said Captain Guy, "that he never
delivered one of them."
"He gave me no note," I cried.
"It's in the pocket of his pea-jacket now," said Captain Chesters.
"He did deliver some messages," I said, "after I questioned him; but
they were such as these: Keep up a good heart; everything's bound to be
right in the end; the last to get back gets the heartiest welcome.
Now, anybody could have sent such words as those."
"Upon my word," cried Mary Phillips, "those were the messages I sent. I
remember particularly the one about the last one back and the heartiest
welcome."
"Confound that Stearns!" cried Captain Guy; "what did he mean by giving
all his attention to you, and none to the lady that he was sent for to
see?"
"Good bye, Mrs. Chesters," I said, taking her by the hand. "I can never
thank you enough for what you have done for her and for me. But how you
could leave her I really do not understand."
"Well," said Mary, coloring a little, "I can scarcely understand it
myself; but that man would have it so, and he's terribly obstinate. But
I don't feel that I've left her. She's in the best of hands, and I see
her nearly every day. Here's her address, and when you meet her, Mr.
Rockwell, you'll find that in every way I've told you truly." I took a
hearty leave of Captain Guy, shook Mary by the hand once more, rushed
down stairs, roused the sleeping cabby, and glancing at the card,
ordered him to gallop to 9 Ravisdock Terrace, Parmley Square.
I do not know how I got into the house, what I said nor what I asked,
nor whether the family had had their breakfast or not; but the moment
my eyes fell upon my beloved Bertha I knew that in everything Mary
Phillips had told me truly. She came into the room with beaming eyes
and both hands extended. With outstretched arms I rushed to meet her,
and folded her to my breast. This time there was no one to object. For
some moments we were speechless with joyful emotion, but there was no
need of our saying anything, no need of statements nor explanations.
Mary Phillips had attended to all that.
When we had cooled down to the point of speech, I was surprised to find
that I had been expected, that Bertha knew I was coming. When Mary
Phillips had left me that morning to prepare my breakfast, she had sent
a message to Bertha, and then she had detained me until she thought it
had been received and Bertha was prepared to meet me.
"I did not want any slips or misses," she said, when she explained the
matter to me afterward. "I don't want to say anything about your
personal appearance, Mr. Rockwell, but there are plenty of servants in
London who, if they hadn't had their orders, would shut the door in the
face of a much less wild-eyed person than you were, sir, that morning."
Bertha and I were married in London, and two weeks afterward we
returned to America in the new ship _Glaucus_, commanded by Captain Guy
Chesters and his wife.
Our marriage in England instead of America was largely due to the
influence of Mary Phillips, who thought it would be much safer and more
prudent for us to be married before we again undertook the risks of a
sea-voyage.
"Nobody knows what may happen on the ocean," she said; "but if you're
once fairly married, that much is accomplished, anyway."
Our choice of a sailing-vessel in which to make the passage was due in
a great part to our desire to keep company as long as possible with
Captain Chesters and his wife, to whom we truly believed we owed each
other.
When we reached New York, and Bertha and I were about to start for the
Catskill Mountains, where we proposed to spend the rest of the summer,
we took leave of Captain Guy and his wife with warmest expressions of
friendship, with plans for meeting again.
Everything seemed to have turned out in the best possible way.
We had each other, and Mary Phillips had some one to manage.
We should have been grieved if we had been obliged to leave her without
occupation.
At the moment of parting I drew her aside. "Mary," I said, "we have had
some strange experiences together, and I shall never forget them."
"Nor shall I, sir," she answered. "Some of them were so harrowing and
close-shaved, and such heart-breaking disappointments I never had. The
worst of all was when you threw that rope clean over our ship without
holding on to your end of it. I had been dead sure that the rope was
going to bring us all together."
"That was a terrible mishap," I answered; "what did Bertha think of
it?"
"Bless my soul!" ejaculated Mary Phillips; "she wasn't on deck, and she
never knew anything about it. When I am nursing up a love match I don't
mention that sort of thing."