An Unknown Lover Part 27

But Katrine thrust out her arm, pushing him away once more, shaking her head. How could she sit down? How think of herself? She leaned her elbows on the rail, and buried her head in her hands. Her brain was racing, she was shuddering with suspense, yet through all her misery her perceptions had grasped one word, and photographed it in lasting remembrance. "Dear!" Bedford had called her "Dear!"

For a minute there was silence. Then she spoke a few words in so low and trembling a voice that he had to bend to catch them.

"How? How did he--"

He caught his breath: she heard the sound, and divined that for this man the worst sting of the tidings lay in the necessity for telling it to her.

"He ... jumped! There were people about. They saw it. He was walking about, began to cough, leaned over the rail... Before they grasped what he was about--"

He stopped short, and Katrine answered with unexpected composure:

"I understand! It overwhelmed him suddenly,--a frenzy of impatience.

He could bear no more. I understand--I think now, I could almost hope--" She turned suddenly and laid her hand on his arm. The hysteria of the last minutes had disappeared, she was weak and spent, and breathlessly subdued. "Take me away, please, where I can't see!"

Bedford half led, half carried. Katrine found herself extended on a long chair drawn for'ard, to a spot where the bridge cut off all view of what was happening astern. She was cold, and he was rubbing her hands; his touch had a magnetic warmth, to which she surrendered with a vague content. The hands which she had noticed and admired had a beauty of touch, as well as line. She watched their movements with a mechanical interest. For the moment there appeared nothing strange in the fact that this comparative stranger was performing so intimate a task. She needed comfort, and he gave it; that was the simple, natural fact.

Presently he raised his eyes to hers with an enquiring glance, and she made a pitiful attempt at a smile.

"I was his only friend on board. Was I--kind enough? Do you think if I had been kinder--?"

"You were an angel!" he a.s.sured her warmly, "and, humanly speaking, nothing could have helped! His brain was diseased. It was not deliberate intent, one is sure of that--just the impulse of a tortured animal, to end it all, and be at peace."

Katrine nodded.

"He told me that at best it was only a question of months. We are well and strong. We can't judge!" Katrine caught her breath on that last word, her brain pierced by the memory of that death in life which threatened her companion's life. "At least," she continued in a lower note, "you _can_! You have been tried, but you are stronger, more patient..."

Bedford's face set; he turned aside, not answering, and they sat in silence during an interminable hour of waiting.

Nothing could be seen of the rescue party, but the sounds from the ship, above all, the _lack_ of sound, told its own tale. There came no quick, acclaiming cry, no ringing cheer; only at last the dull splash of the oars, and the creak of the ropes as the returning boat was hoisted to the davits.

Bedford roused himself, crept silently away, and returning five minutes later seated himself as silently on the floor by Katrine's side. She did not turn her head, nor question him by so much as a glance, but when once more the ship shivered beneath the throbs of the engine, and the waters raced back from the prow, the tears streamed down her face.

"I'm... _not_ sorry I... I didn't want him to be brought back to more suffering and--shame! But it seems cruel to go on as if nothing had happened,--nothing mattered! The only comfort is that for him, it must have been--_quick_... He was so weak. He rose only once. Say it was quick!"

"Very quick!" Bedford a.s.sured her. Not for his life would he have hinted at the awful explanation of that solitary rising, which was now generally accepted on board. He prayed that no one would enlighten her ignorance. Once again he stole away, and returned in a few minutes, carrying a cup of tea. Life must go on for the living, though death hovers at hand, and already the saloon was filled with a pallid crowd, who seemed to find unusual refreshment in the postponed meal. A cup of tea, a rest, a bath, then the pa.s.sengers would dress for dinner, and brushing aside the cloud, declare that, poor beggar! he had not much to lose. By the morrow the incident would be discreetly banned...

Katrine drank her tea, grateful for it like the rest, her face white and disfigured by tears. During that long hour of silent waiting she had looked into life with a terrifying insight. So one could suffer at the fate of a stranger! How would it be for the _one_ individuality which made the world? She shrank at the thought, telling herself, as the untried are pitifully wont to do, that such a possibility was beyond endurance, and therefore could not be; knowing full well in her heart that a time must surely come when she in her turn must feel the rack...

Vernon Keith had been the acquaintance of a week; for a week to come she would look involuntarily for the gaunt form; another week, and in the glamour of new surroundings his image would fade into obscurity; in a few months his very name might be forgotten. What she was suffering now was but shock and regret, impersonal, pitiful regret, but, if it had been another man--_this_ man, for example, with the brown face, and the grey eyes, who now sat at her feet--?

Katrine sat up hurriedly, and pushed the hair from her brow. The hand which held the cup was shaking so violently that Bedford heard, and took it from her, to place upon the deck.

"Don't you think you could lie down, and get a rest? Shall I bring Mrs Mannering? You ought to be perfectly quiet and away from the crowd--"

Katrine looked at him vaguely as though only half understanding the purport of his words.

"Perhaps. Yes. Later on. There was something I wanted to say..." She was silent for a moment, and then added with the simple inconsequence of a child, "I'm engaged, you know! Not definitely, but virtually.

Engaged to be married to--a good man! You are good too. I wanted you to know."

Bedford twisted the teaspoon in his fingers, laid it down at a new angle, lifted it again. His face was hidden, but Katrine saw the brown neck flame darkly red against the flannel coat. When he spoke, however, it was the most calm and level of voices.

"However good he may be, Miss Beverley, he is not good enough for you."

A few minutes later he rose, and walked quietly away in search of Mrs Mannering.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

The next morning Katrine slept late. Physically she felt tired and spent; mentally, despite the shock of Vernon Keith's tragic end, she was conscious of a feeling of relief, as though a weight had been lifted from her mind.

Reviewing the events of the day before, she flushed to think of the inconsequent manner in which she had announced the fact of her understanding with Jim Blair. How had she come to do it? What exactly had she said? Her mental condition at the time of speaking had been so deranged that she had no clear recollection of the sequence of events.

She _hoped_ there had been nothing startling or unusual about the announcement, that Captain Bedford had not thought it unnecessary and uncalled for, but even if things were different from her hopes, she was still thankful that on that wave of impulse she had spoken and confessed the truth, for from the moment of her meeting with Bedford--not the formal meeting in the saloon of the ship, but that other speechless encounter in the streets of Port Said, she had felt oppressed by a sense of disloyalty, which no amount of reasoning could dissolve. The personality of Jim Blair, as revealed through the medium of pen and ink, had become suddenly a shadowy, intangible thing when compared with the magnetism of this live man's presence.

Not once, but a hundred times over, had Katrine regretted the little bundle of letters securely packed in a box in the hold--those tender, humorous, pre-eminently sane letters which had taken so strong a hold of her imagination. She had packed them away for security's sake, telling herself that she would receive others at Port Said and Bombay, and that on the way out to meet the very man himself, she would have no need of written words, but the Port Said letter had proved a disappointment, and a need _had_ arisen! It would have meant much to her during the last days to have had those written words before her eyes.

After breakfast Mrs Mannering descended, bustling and energetic.

"Now then--up with you! No use lying here, and glumping over what's past. One man's gone. G.o.d rest his soul, and give him a better chance than he ever had here! but there's another one waiting for you upstairs.

If you've any sense you'll be up and join him."

Katrine sat up obediently, and began drawing on her long silk stockings.

"Mrs Mannering,--what's your religion?"

Her companion started, stared, and laughed.

"Well! any way I can tell you _yours_! Narrow Church!" she said chuckling. "Eh, what? Hit it at once, haven't I now?"

Katrine settled the heel of her stocking, and raised a flushed, disquieted face.

"I suppose so. Y-es! For myself. But I don't expect every one to think the same."

"Then, bless your heart! you're not so narrow after all! Believe what helps you most, but allow other people the same privilege. Them's my sentiments, my dear, and--for the rest!--we'll find out some day, and there'll be some rare old shocks for the sticklers who've got it all cut and dried, and expect creation to chant Amen. What put you on the religious tack? The thought of that poor sinner who went out yesterday?"

"Yes. I have been thinking--wondering where he--"

"Ah!" the woman's voice struck a deeper note. "If we knew that, my dear, life would be simpler for us all. You'll find some wise folks who'd tell you in detail, up to the fifth and sixth stages of development. I'm not taking any myself. I prefer to wait till it's time to move on, and find out for myself, and meantime,--well! my lights may be dim, but they're burning, my dear, they're burning! There are people on earth who would laugh themselves sick at the thought of Nance Mannering talking religion; your good vicar would probably give me a wide berth, but I've got my own principles, and, please G.o.d, I'll keep 'em... That's a good man, that Bedford. He carries it in his face.

Going to fall in love with you all right!"

"Oh, _not_" contradicted Katrine sharply. She stood up, shook back her tangled mane of hair, and began to brush it in long even sweeps. Her face was hidden, but her voice was charged with eagerness. "Never! He has known me only for a few days, and besides I've told him that there is--some one else! I'm not engaged; please remember that, but there _is_ something,--an understanding, between me and another man,--enough in any case to make anything else impossible, on either side. There was no _need_ to tell Captain Bedford; we are the merest acquaintances, but it seemed wise to explain..."

"Jest so!" agreed Mrs Mannering significantly. "Since, of course, we are all aware that forbidden fruit loses its charm." The next moment, to Katrine's disgust, she began humming to herself a succession of nursery rhymes: "Mary had a little lamb, Its fleece was w-hite as snow... Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling--"

Chuckling she left the cabin, while Katrine tugged viciously at a knotted lock. "She can be nice enough when she likes, but sometimes I _hate_ that woman!"

Up on the deck beneath the double white awnings the atmosphere was delightfully rea.s.suring. A strong wind had arisen, and the water was dashing up against the sides of the vessel in powdery columns of foam.

The mountains had disappeared and there was no land in sight. Katrine felt a distinct surprise; geographical studies had not prepared her to find the Red Sea so large!

By common consent the tragedy of the day before was banished from conversation, and the different little companies of friends were grouped about talking and reading after the ordinary morning fashion. Bedford came forward to greet Katrine, looking cool and big in his loose white clothes, and altogether unembarra.s.sed and at his ease. As usual a string of children followed at his heels, foremost among them that "Jackey" who had been his devout admirer since the episode of his own defeat. They scowled at Katrine, as the cause of their hero's defection, but he waved them away with good-natured decision, and led her forward to a corner of the deck where stood two chairs, and a small table on which was placed a mysterious cardboard box.