It was the last night of their voyage together. The Ruggleses were to leave the ship the next morning at Algiers, where they intended to remain for some time.
“Would you mind going to the afterdeck?” he asked. “These people walking about fidget me,” he added rather irritably.
She rose, and they made their way aft. John drew a couple of chairs near to the rail. “I don’t care to sit down for the present,” she said, and they stood looking out at sea for a while in silence.
“Do you remember,” said John at last, “a night six years ago when we stood together, at the end of the voyage, leaning over the rail like this?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Does this remind you of it?” he asked.
“I was thinking of it,” she said.
“Do you remember the last night I was at your house?” he asked, looking straight out over the moonlit water.
“Yes,” she said again.
“Did you know that night what was in my heart to say to you?”
There was no answer.
“May I tell you now?” he asked, giving a side glance at her profile, which in the moonlight showed very white.
“Do you think you ought?” she answered in a low voice, “or that I ought to listen to you?”
“I know,” he exclaimed. “You think that as a married woman you should not listen, and that knowing you to be one I should not speak. If it were to ask anything of you I would not. It is for the first and last time. Tomorrow we part again, and for all time, I suppose. I have carried the words that were on my lips that night all these years in my heart. I know I can have no response—I expect none; but it can not harm you if I tell you that I loved you then, and have—”
She put up her hand in protest.
“You must not go on, Mr. Lenox,” she said, turning to him, “and I must leave you.”
“Are you very angry with me?” he asked humbly.
She turned her face to the sea again and gave a sad little laugh.
“Not so much as I ought to be,” she answered; “but you yourself have given the reason why you should not say such things, and why I should not listen, and why I ought to say good night.”
“Ah, yes,” he said bitterly; “of course you are right, and this is to be the end.”
She turned and looked at him for a moment. “You will never again speak to me as you have tonight, will you?” she asked.
“I should not have said what I did had I not thought I should never see you again after tomorrow,” said John, “and I am not likely to do that, am I?”
“If I could be sure,” she said hesitatingly, and as if to herself.
“Well,” said John eagerly. She stood with her eyes downcast for a moment, one hand resting on the rail, and then she looked up.
“We expect to stay in Algiers about two months,” she said, “and then we are going to Naples to visit some friends for a few days, about the time you told me you thought you might be there. Perhaps it would be better if we said goodbye tonight; but if after we get home you are to spend your days in Homeville and I mine in New York, we shall not be likely to meet, and, except on this side of the ocean, we may, as you say, never see each other again. So, if you wish, you may come to see me in Naples if you happen to be there when we are. I am sure after tonight that I may trust you, may I not? But,” she added, “perhaps you would not care. I am treating you very frankly; but from your standpoint you would expect or excuse more frankness than if I were a young girl.”
“I care very much,” he declared, “and it will be a happiness to me to see you on any footing, and you may trust me never to break bounds again.” She made a motion as if to depart.
“Don’t go just yet,” he said pleadingly; “there is now no reason why you should for a while, is there? Let us sit here in this gorgeous night a little longer, and let me smoke a cigar.”
At the moment he was undergoing a revulsion of feeling. His state of mind was like that of an improvident debtor who, while knowing that the note must be paid some time, does not quite realize it for a while after an extension. At last the cigar was finished. There had been but little said between them.
“I really must go,” she said, and he walked with her across the hanging bridge and down the deck to the gangway door.
“Where shall I address you to let you know when we shall be in Naples?” she asked as they were about to separate.
“Care of Cook & Son,” he said. “You will find the address in Baedeker.”
He saw her the next morning long enough for a touch of the hand and a goodbye before the bobbing, tubby little boat with its Arab crew took the Ruggleses on board.
XLVII
How John Lenox tried to kill time during the following two months, and how time retaliated during the process, it is needless to set forth. It may not, however, be wholly irrelevant to note that his cough had gradually disappeared, and that his appetite had become good enough to carry him through the average table d’hôte dinner. On the morning after his arrival at Naples he found a cable dispatch at the office of Cook & Son, as follows: “Sixty cash, forty stock. Stock good. Harum.”
“God bless the dear old boy!” said
