Part 7 (1/2)
”Yes,” she said....
He comprehended something of the struggle she was having with herself, and respected it. If he had consulted his own inclinations, he would have turned and marched off without another word. But for her sake he lingered. Let her have the satisfaction (he bade himself) of knowing that she had done her duty at their leave-taking.
She caught him suddenly by the shoulders with both her hands. Her eyes sought his with a wistful courage he could not but admire.
”You know I'm grateful....”
”Don't think of it that way--though I'm glad you are.”
”You're a good man,” she said brokenly.
He knew himself too well to be able to reply.
”You mustn't worry about me, now. You've made things easy for me. I can take care of myself, and ... I shan't forget whose name I bear.”
He muttered something to the effect that he was sure of that.
She released his shoulders and stood back, searching his face with tormented eyes. Abruptly she offered him her hand.
”Good-by,” she said, her lips quivering--”Good-by, good friend!”
He caught the hand, wrung it clumsily and painfully and ... realized that the train was in motion. He had barely time to get away....
He found himself on the station platform, stupidly watching the rear lights dwindle down the tracks and wondering whether or not hallucinations were a phase of his malady. A sick man often dreams strange dreams....
A voice behind him, cool with a trace of irony, observed:
”I'd give a good deal to know just what particular brand of d.a.m.n'
foolishness you've been indulging in, this time.”
He whirled around to face Peter Stark--Peter quietly amused and very much the master of the situation.
”You needn't think,” said he, ”that you have any chance on earth of escaping my fond attentions, Hugh. I'll go to the ends of the earth after you, if you won't let me go with you. I've fixed it up with Nelly to wait until I bring you home, a well man, before we get married; and if you refuse to be my best man--well, there won't be any party. You can make up your mind to that.”
V
WILFUL MISSING
It was one o'clock in the morning before Whitaker allowed himself to be persuaded; fatigue reenforced every stubborn argument of Peter Stark's to overcome his resistance. It was a repet.i.tion of the episode of Mary Ladislas recast and rewritten: the stronger will overcame the admonitions of a saner judgment. Whitaker gave in. ”Oh, have your own way,” he said at length, unconsciously iterating the words that had won him a bride. ”If it must be....”
Peter put him to bed, watched over him through the night, and the next morning carried him on to New Bedford, where they superintended the outfitting of Peter's yacht, the _Adventuress_. Beyond drawing heavily on his bank and sending Drummond a brief note, Whitaker failed to renew communication with his home. He sank into a state of semi-apathetic content; he thought little of anything beyond the business of the moment; the preparations for what he was pleased to term his funeral cruise absorbed him to the exclusion of vain repinings or anxiety for the welfare of his advent.i.tious wife. Apparently his sudden disappearance had not caused the least ripple on the surface of life in New York; the newspapers, at all events, slighted the circ.u.mstance unanimously: to his complete satisfaction.
Within the week the _Adventuress_ sailed.
She was five months out of port before Whitaker began to be conscious that he was truly accursed. There came a gradual thickening of the shadows that threatened to eclipse his existence. And then, one day as they dined with the lonely trader of an isolated station in the D'Entrecasteaux Islands, he fell from his chair as if poleaxed. He regained consciousness only to s.h.i.+ver with the chill of the wind that's fanned by the wings of death. It was impossible to move him. The agonies of the d.a.m.ned were his when, with exquisite gentleness, they lifted him to a bed....
Stark sailed in the _Adventuress_ before sundown of the same day, purposing to fetch a surgeon from Port Moresby. Whitaker said a last farewell to his friend, knowing in his soul that they would never meet again. Then he composed himself to die quietly. But the following morning brought a hapchance trading schooner to the island, and with it, in the estate of supercargo, a c.r.a.pulous Scotch gentleman who had been a famous specialist of London before drink laid him by the heels. He performed an heroic operation upon Whitaker within an hour, announced by nightfall that the patient would recover, and the next day sailed with his s.h.i.+p to end his days in some abandoned Australian boozing-ken--as Whitaker learned in Sydney several months later.
In the same place, and at the same time, he received his first authentic news of the fate of the _Adventuress_. The yacht had struck on an uncharted reef, in heavy weather, and had foundered almost immediately.
Of her entire company, a solitary sailor managed to cling to a life-raft until picked up, a week after the wreck, by a tramp steams.h.i.+p on whose decks he gasped out his news and his life in the same breaths.