"Noll.... Look at me...."
He obeyed, in spite of himself; and there was such depths of tenderness
and sorrow in her eyes that the man's heart melted in him. "It's not
Mauger I'm sorry for," she told him. "It's you, Noll.... That you should
be so cowardly, Noll...."
His rage broke, then; he fell to fretting, whining.... She sat down; he
slumped like a child beside her. He told her he was tired, weary....
That he was worried.... That his nerves had betrayed him.... That the
drink was in him.... "They're all trying to stir me," he complained.
"They take a joy in doing the thing wrong.... They're helpless,
slithering fools.... I lost myself, Faith...."
He pleaded with her, desperately anxious to make her understand; and
Faith understood from the beginning, with the full wisdom of woman, yet
let him talk out all his unhappiness and remorse.... And because she
loved him, her arm was about him and his great head was drawn against
her breast long before he was done. She comforted him with touches of
her light hands upon his head; she soothed him with murmurs that were no
words at all....
The man reveled in this orgy of self-abasement. He groveled before her,
until she began to be faintly contemptuous, in her heart, at his
groveling. She bade him make an end of it....
"I was a coward, Faith," he cried. "You're right. I was a coward...."
"You are a man, Noll," she told him. "Stronger than other men, and not
in your fists alone. That is why I love you so...."
"I know, I know," he told her. "Oh, you're a wonder, Faith...."
"You're a man. Always remember that," she said.
He got up abruptly. He started toward the main cabin; and she asked:
"Where are you going, Noll?"
"Forward," he said. "I've wronged Mauger...." He was drunk with this
new-found joy of abasing himself. "I'll tell the man so. I'll right
things with him...."
And he added thoughtfully: "He cursed me. I don't want the man's hate.
I'll right things with him...."