Woven with the Ship Part 13

"I think it is very improbable."

"Well, I don't, then!" she exclaimed, vigorously resuming her stroke.

"You saved her life, and I don't see how she could help it," she continued.

"I didn't save your life, though, Emily."

The boat was in the shadow of the island trees, where it had been when he had first spoken of love to her that morning. She let it drift; again the water made sweet music lipping along the side; they would a.s.sociate it forever with these ineffable moments.

"No," she murmured, her honesty and innocence giving her courage to say that which another might have sought to conceal, "you didn't, but--I don't believe--I can--help it, either."

It was out now. His love had shown her her own. She was another woman; never again would she look at life with the eyes of the girl of yesterday. Ferdinand had come to Miranda; and Ariel had opened the eyes of the maiden to new things on the old island more wonderful than those revealed by Prospero's magic wand. And to Revere, too, the complexion of the world suddenly and swiftly altered.

"Oh, Emily, you don't mean it!" he cried in exultant surprise. He had not hoped so soon for this revelation of the woman's heart.

Her face was averted now, but she spoke distinctly enough for him to hear every whispered word.

"Yes, I think--I believe--I do. I have thought about it a great deal since you spoke."--Three hours ago! "And I believe I----"

She could not quite say it--yet.

"Emily, dearest, I am so happy it seems to me I can hardly breathe. I do not dare to look at you. I love you so! Come, let us hurry back to the sh.o.r.e."

"Mr. Revere----" she began, starting the boat again.

"That will not do at all," he interrupted, promptly and decisively; "you must call me something else--now that you--oh, do you?"

"Richard," she said, bravely.

"Those who love me call me 'd.i.c.k,'" pleadingly.

"I couldn't say that--not just yet--d.i.c.k!"

He laughed in sheer pleasure.

"I never knew what a pretty name I had before, Emily."

"I think it is lovely," she said, navely.

"Thank you. Do you like my other name, too?"

"Oh, ever so much."

"I am so glad, because it will be yours. Mrs. Richard Revere."

"Hush, how can you!" she cried, blushing furiously. "I want to ask one thing of you. Do not say anything about--to-day. That is, to grandfather or Captain Barry,--not just yet."

"I'm not likely to say anything about it to Captain Barry now or at any other time," he laughed; "and as for the admiral, it will do no harm for us to wait a day or two, I fancy,--that is, if you wish it, princess."

Her desire suited his plans admirably, for the delay would give him time to write and get his freedom.

"I want to enjoy it first alone," she went on, dreamily. "I want to have the knowledge that you love me all to myself, just for a day.

It's so sacred, and so solemn a thing to me, Richard; so beautiful, that I want to keep it just here in my heart alone, for a little while."

She laid her hand upon her heart with the sweetest gesture as she spoke.

"It shall be so," he answered, frankly, adoring her. "Whatever you wish shall always be, if I can bring it about."

Oh, the rash promises of lovers!

"And you will let me have my happiness to myself, then? You will not think me foolish?"

"Not all to yourself, for, though I do not speak, I must still share it, and I think you are perfect in everything."

"We are at the wharf," she murmured. "I must go up to the house alone.

Do not come with me. I want to think it over."

"But, dearest, I shall see you to-night?" he pleaded.

"Yes; but please do not persuade me now."

Respecting her desire, he doffed his cap and stood aside for her to pa.s.s, bowing low before her with all the chivalry of his race, all the ardor of his youth, all the devotion of his manhood in his look and att.i.tude.

The sweetness of the present reality so far transcended her sometime imagination of it that the girl, on leaving him, walked away as if borne by seraph's wings through the air of heaven. Yet there was a note athwart her joy,--not exactly one of sadness or of heaviness, but a feeling, as it were, of maidenly awe before the bright vistas of happiness which had opened before her eyes, in her lover's presence, in his love. Unconsciously she put her hand to her face, as if the sight dazzled her.

A little distance away Revere, having fastened the boat, followed her up the hill. She did not look back, but she could hear his feet upon the steps. He was there, then. He was looking at her as he had looked at her in the boat. He loved her. What had she done to merit this?

She stopped on the porch by the chair where her grandfather sat gazing at the ship and dreaming as usual. She bent low and kissed him as she had never kissed him before. He awoke from his reverie with a start, half comprehending, and gazed from the girl entering the door to Revere coming up the walk.

"You have been a long time, lad," he said, as the latter stopped before him.

"Yes, sir. We took luncheon together at the old inn and rowed back slowly. Your granddaughter--I shall have something to say to you in a day or two, sir."

"I hope so," said the admiral, quietly. "I thought so. But don't wait too many days. Days are as moments to the young; to the aged they are as years."

That day Barry had not left the ship. With a long, old-fashioned gla.s.s that was chief among his treasures, which had belonged to the admiral, he had followed the boat across the harbor. He had divined--by what cunning who can say?--what had been said in the pauses under the trees. He had waited and watched for them until the lovers came back.

He knew it all. Twenty times during the period of their stay upon the sh.o.r.e he had gone down to the locker and taken out the letters.

And at last he had succ.u.mbed to the temptation. The devil had won him in the end. Hidden away in his corner of the old vessel, he opened the bundle of letters and orders. And as he painfully deciphered them, one by one, it all became clear to him. This cursed officer had come to sell the ship over their heads. He had stolen Emily's heart, and yet he was engaged to be married to another woman. The letters from Josephine Remington puzzled him; but as he slowly blundered through them, with their casual references to an engagement, with their quiet a.s.sumption that all was understood between the two, Barry became convinced that Revere was simply amusing himself with the admiral's granddaughter.

And was he to stand idle, indifferent, impotent, while these things were going on? Was the old ship to be sold and broken up? His ship!

His love, too! Was that sweet flower of innocence to be rifled of the chief treasure of her womanhood and he do nothing? Was she to be robbed of her happiness, too, while he was there? No, never!

His brain reeled under the pressure of his thoughts. What should he do? What could he do? In what way might he compa.s.s the destruction of this man? Save the ship and save the girl, too!

Ah! Like to one of old in his blindness, there flashed an idea into his mind, as he stood there with the crumpled letters in his clinched hand. At first it startled him. It was so bold; in a way it was so terrible. But he had brooded too long to look at that idea in more than one light. With the one thought of revenge upon the man who he imagined intended to sell the ship, and who would gain Emily Sanford, he brooded upon the notion until it took entire possession of him, and then, although it involved his own destruction, he grimly prepared to put it in practice.