“My dear, if you are thrown upon this Mr. Chatham for society all the time of the voyage, and have nobody else to talk to—” said the prudent interlocutor.
“Then we’ll go in another ship,” cried Nettie, promptly; “that is easily managed. I know what it is, a long voyage with three children—they fall up the cabin-stairs, and they fall down the forecastle; and they give you twenty frights in a day that they will drop overboard. One does not have much leisure for anything—not even for thinking, which is a comfort sometimes,” added Nettie, confidentially, to herself.
“It depends upon what you think of, whether thinking is a comfort or not,” said good Miss Wodehouse. “When I think of you young people, and all the perplexities you get into! There is Lucy now, vexed with Mr. Wentworth about something—oh, nothing worth mentioning; and there was poor Dr. Rider! How he did look behind him, to be sure, as he went past St. Roque’s! I daresay it was you he was looking for, Nettie. I wish you and he could have fancied each other, and come to some arrangement about poor Mr. Fred’s family—to give them so much to live on, or something. I assure you, when I begin to think over such things, and how perverse both people and circumstances are, thinking is very little comfort to me.”
Miss Wodehouse drew a long sigh, and was by no means disinclined to cry over her little companion. Though she was the taller of the two, she leant upon Nettie’s firm little fairy arm as they went up the quiet road. Already the rapid winter twilight had fallen, and before them, in the distance, glimmered the lights of Carlingford—foremost among which shone conspicuous the large placid white lamp (for professional reds and blues were beneath his dignity) which mounted guard at Dr. Marjoribanks’s garden gate. Those lights, beginning to shine through the evening darkness, gave a wonderful look of home to the place. Instinctively there occurred to Nettie’s mind a vision of how it would be on the sea, with a wide dark ocean heaving around the solitary speck on its breast. It did not matter! If a silent sob arose in her heart, it found no utterance. Might not Edward Rider have made that suggestion which had occurred only to Miss Wodehouse? Why did it never come into his head that Susan and her family might have a provision supplied for them, which would relieve Nettie? He had not thought of it, that was all. Instead of that, he had accepted the impossibility. Nettie’s heart had grown impatient in the maze of might-be’s. She turned her back upon the lights, and clasped Miss Wodehouse’s hand, and said good night hastily. She went on by herself very rapidly along the hard gleaming road. She did not pay any attention to her friend’s protestation that she too was coming back again to St. Roque’s to join Lucy—on the contrary, Nettie peremptorily left Miss Wodehouse, shaking hands with her in so resolute a manner that her gentle adviser felt somehow a kind of necessity upon her to pursue her way home; and, only when Nettie was nearly out of sight, turned again with hesitation to retrace her steps towards St. Roque’s. Nettie, meanwhile, went on at a pace which Miss Wodehouse could not possibly have kept up with, clasping her tiny hands together with a swell of scorn and disdain unusual to it in her heart. Yes! Why did not Edward Rider propose the “arrangement” which appeared feasible enough to Miss Wodehouse? Supposing even Nettie had refused to consent to it, as she might very probably have done with indignation—still, why did it not occur to Dr. Edward? She asked herself the question with a heat and passion which she found it difficult to account for. She half despised her lover, as woman will, for obeying her—almost scorned him, as woman will, for the mere constancy which took no violent measures, but only suffered and accepted the inevitable. To submit to what cannot be helped is a woman’s part. Nettie, hastening along that familiar path, blazed into a sudden burst of rage against Edward because he submitted. What he could do else she was as ignorant of as any unreasonable creature could be. But that mattered little. With indignation she saw herself standing on the verge of that domestic precipice, and the doctor looking on, seeing her glide out of his reach, yet putting forth no violent sudden hand to detain her. All the impatience of her fiery nature boiled in her veins as she hasted to the cottage, where Susan was discussing their journey with her Australian visitor. No remnant of pathos or love-sickening remained about Nettie, as she flashed in upon them in all her old haste and self-reliance—resolute to precipitate the catastrophe which nobody took any measures to prevent.
XV
It was not long before the doctor was made aware of the ghost in his troubled path. Nobody in Carlingford could meet the big Bushman in those streets, which always looked too narrow for him, without a certain curiosity about that salvage man. Dr. Rider had observed him with jealous interest on his very first appearance, but had hitherto connected no idea but that of a return to Australia, which he felt sure Nettie would never consent to, with the big stranger. With such a thought he had seen him making his way towards the cottage that very evening when he himself turned back, as long as those crimsoned windows were visible, to look for Nettie, who did not show herself. The doctor was bound to see a distant patient, miles on the other side of Carlingford. As he dashed along over the echoing road he had time to imagine to himself how Nettie might at that very moment be badgered and persecuted; and when he had seen his patient
