“I see now the explanation of so many things that bewildered me at
first—that made me suffer. That day at Rosyth, for instance, when you
went in and left me, you didn’t despise or hate me. You may have been
disillusioned—”
“It isn’t the word,” she murmured, still motionless, and looking off at
the big white star. “I’d been thinking of you as the kind of man I’d—I’d
been looking for so long.”
“And you saw I was less so than any of the others.”
“I’m not saying that. But if you think it was easy to tear up all one’s
conceptions by the roots and plant in new ones—however kindly—all at
once—”
“Oh no, I don’t! not now. But at that time I didn’t know you. It’s only
been since coming on board and finding out what you’ve done—”
Curiosity prompted her to glance round at me.
“Then it was only since coming on board?”
“Oh, it was simple enough. It’s silly to keep up the secret. I was
talking, while we were still in the dock at Liverpool, with that handsome
Canadian nurse.”
“Miss Ogden. She was matron of the hospital at—”
“She knew who you were. She couldn’t tell me your name, but she said—or
Miss Prynne said—that you’d come over with Evelyn—that you’d been at
Taplow with Mabel—”
“I know; the sort of thing that goes round among nurses.”
“And so I put two and two together and formed a theory.”
“You needn’t tell me what it is. Please don’t.”
“But I want to.” I hurried on before she could protest further. “When
you saw that you’d—you’d hurt me—that day at Rosyth—and that I had
disappeared—and gone into the army—and away to England—you got into touch
with Evelyn—”
“I wanted to do something,” she declared, in a tone of self-defense. “I
couldn’t help it when I knew the need was going to be so great. We didn’t
see that all at once, because we thought the war was going to be over in
a very little while. But when we began to realize it wasn’t—”
“Oh, I don’t say you did it all on my account.”
Though this was meant to provoke either admission or denial, she glided
over it.
“It wasn’t easy to do anything in New York, because we hadn’t got that
far as yet; and so I naturally went to Canada. When I did so Annette gave
me a line of introduction to Evelyn.”
“And you told her about me.”
She fell into my trap so far as to say: “I didn’t tell her. I simply let
her guess.”
“Guess what?”
“All I ever said to her in words was to ask her never to mention my name
to you.”
“But why?”
“I did the same with Lady Rideover when she took me on at Taplow.”
“Why—again?”
“For the reason that—that if you ever came to find out what I was doing
you’d misunderstand it; just as I see you—you do.”
“But I don’t. I don’t misunderstand it when I say that in going to my
sisters you wanted to be—you mustn’t be offended!—you wanted to be near
me—to watch over me as much as possible.”
“You were the only man I knew at that time who’d taken the actual step of
going to the war. If there’d been any others—”
“It wouldn’t have mattered if there’d been a hundred. I don’t
misunderstand it when I say that as soon as you knew I was going home by
this boat you arranged—”
“To go home by it too,” she forestalled, quickly, “so that you should
have somebody near you who could get about in the normal way in case
there was danger. I admit that. It’s perfectly true.” She turned round on
me with fire in her manner as well as in her eyes. “But what do you think
I’m going home for?”