Part 55 (1/2)
Whitney pressed his arm sympathetically.
”He's dead.”
There was silence for the next minute, except for the mournful murmur of the sea.
”It wasn't long after you went ash.o.r.e,” Whitney added. ”He looked up and beckoned me to sit on the locker by his cot. 'Tell Andrew I'm glad he'll have Appleyard,' he said.”
Whitney paused for a moment.
”He lay still afterward, and I thought he'd gone to sleep. Then the cabin seemed to grow strangely quiet, and when I got up to look at him I saw that he was dead.”
”The hurried trip down-channel killed him, and he made it for my sake!” Andrew said, in a tense, hoa.r.s.e voice.
”You mustn't take that for granted; but, if true, he certainly wouldn't grudge the risk. He might have died at any time from some trifling exertion.”
Andrew indicated the dinghy, in which he had rowed off from the yacht alone.
”How did you get ash.o.r.e?”
”The bank's steep and I sheered her in until I could jump from the bowsprit end. I didn't want you to come on board without knowing.”
”Thanks,” said Andrew. ”I'm going off to her now. Try to get into Marshall's hut and make a fire. We'll have to wait some time for the doctor.”
He launched the dinghy, and when he returned Whitney had lighted a few sticks and peats in the fisherman's sod hut. Andrew's face was grave as he sat down on an empty box.
”If you don't mind, I'd rather not talk,” he said.
He let Whitney row the doctor off when he arrived; and day was breaking when they reached Annan. An hour later, Andrew, feeling limp and cold, got down from a trap at Appleyard and walked stiffly into the hall. Elsie came to meet him with a glow in her eyes; but she stopped abruptly when she saw his face.
”What's the matter?” she asked.
He looked at her compa.s.sionately and she gasped.
”Oh! Is d.i.c.k--?”
He put his arm around her and led her to an oak bench near the big fireplace.
”d.i.c.k's dead,” he said quietly. ”On board the _Rowan_. Heart failure, the doctor thinks.”
”I sent him, when I knew he was ill!” she cried in distress.
”You didn't know it would do him much harm, dear.”
”But I did!” Elsie moaned with a s.h.i.+ver, turning her head.
Andrew was puzzled, but he answered soothingly:
”I know what you feel, because I felt it too--d.i.c.k might have got better and lived a long time if he hadn't gone down-channel to warn me. In fact, I spoke to the doctor about it, but he didn't altogether take this view.”
”He didn't want you to blame yourself.”