The Tides of Barnegat Part 43

"I won't stop. I'll have it out--I've lived all the lies I'm goin' to live! I told you all this fifteen year ago when I thought Bart was dead, and you wanted me to keep shut, and I did, and you did, too, and you ain't never opened your mouth since. That's because you're a man--all four square sides of ye. You didn't want to hurt Miss Jane, and no more did I. That's why I pa.s.sed Archie there in the street; that's why I turned round and looked after him when I couldn't see sometimes for the tears in my eyes; and all to save that THING there that ain't worth savin'! By G.o.d, when I think of it I want to tear my tongue out for keepin' still as long as I have!"

Lucy, who had shrunk back against the wall, now raised her head:

"Coward! Coward!" she muttered.

The captain turned and faced her, his eyes blazing, his rage uncontrollable:

"Yes, you're a THING, I tell ye!--and I'll say it ag'in. I used to think it was Bart's fault. Now I know it warn't. It was yours. You tricked him, d.a.m.n ye! Do ye hear? Ye tricked him with yer lies and yer ways. Now they're over--there'll be no more lies--not while I live! I'm goin' to strip ye to bare poles so's folks 'round here kin see. Git out of my way--all of ye! Out, I tell ye!"

The doctor had stepped in front of the infuriated man, his back to the closed door, his open palm upraised.

"I will not, and you shall not!" he cried. "What you are about do to is ruin--for Lucy, for Jane, and for little Ellen. You cannot--you shall not put such a stain upon that child. You love her, you--"

"Yes--too well to let that woman touch her ag'in if I kin help it!" The fury of the merciless sea was in him now--the roar and pound of the surf in his voice. "She'll be a curse to the child all her days; she'll go back on her when she's a mind to just as she did on Archie. There ain't a dog that runs the streets that would 'a' done that. She didn't keer then, and she don't keer now, with him a-lyin' dead there. She ain't looked at him once nor shed a tear. It's too late. All h.e.l.l can't stop me! Out of my way, I tell ye, doctor, or I'll hurt ye!"

With a wrench he swung back the doors and flung himself into the light.

"Come in, men! Isaac, Green--all of ye--and you over there! I got something to say, and I don't want ye to miss a word of it! You, too, Mr. Feilding, and that lady next ye--and everybody else that kin hear!

"That's my son, Barton Holt, lyin' there dead! The one I druv out o'

here nigh twenty year ago. It warn't for playin' cards, but on account of a woman; and there she stands--Lucy Cobden! That dead boy beside him is their child--my own grandson, Archie! Out of respect to the best woman that ever lived, Miss Jane Cobden, I've kep' still. If anybody ain't satisfied all they got to do is to look over these letters.

That's all!"

Lucy, with a wild, despairing look at Max, had sunk to the floor and lay cowering beneath the lifeboat, her face hidden in the folds of her cloak.

Jane had shrunk back behind one of the big folding doors and stood concealed from the gaze of the astonished crowd, many of whom were pressing into the entrance. Her head was on the doctor's shoulder, her fingers had tight hold of his sleeve. Doctor John's arms were about her frail figure, his lips close to her cheek.

"Don't, dear--don't," he said softly. "You have nothing to reproach yourself with. Your life has been one long sacrifice."

"Oh, but Archie, John! Think of my boy being gone! Oh, I loved him so, John!"

"You made a man of him, Jane. All he was he owed to you." He was holding her to him--comforting her as a father would a child.

"And my poor Lucy," Jane moaned on, "and the awful, awful disgrace!"

Her face was still hidden in his shoulder, her frame shaking with the agony of her grief, the words coming slowly, as if wrung one by one out of her breaking heart.

"You did your duty, dear--all of it." His lips were close to her ear.

No one else heard.

"And you knew it all these years, John--and you did not tell me."

"It was your secret, dear; not mine."

"Yes, I know--but I have been so blind--so foolish. I have hurt you so often, and you have been so true through it all. O John, please--please forgive me! My heart has been so sore at times--I have suffered so!"

Then, with a quick lifting of her head, as if the thought alarmed her, she asked in sudden haste:

"And you love me, John, just the same? Say you love me, John!"

He gathered her closer, and his lips touched her cheek:

"I never remember, my darling, when I did not love you. Have you ever doubted me?"

"No, John, no! Never, never! Kiss me again, my beloved. You are all I have in the world!"

THE END