"Not a word?"
"Not a word."
Davy was pawing up the carpet with the toe of his boot, and filling his pipe from his pouch.
"Going back to Callao, Capt"n?" said Lovibond.
"G.o.d knows, mate," said Davy. "I"m like the seeding gra.s.s, blown here and there, and the Lord knows where; but maybe I"ll find land at last."
"Capt"n, about the money?--dy"e owe me any grudge about that?" said Lovibond.
"Lord-a-ma.s.sy! Grudge, is it?" said Davy. "Aw, no, man, no. The money was my mischief. It"s gone, and good luck to it."
"But if I could show you a way to get it all back again, Capt"n----"
"Chut! I wouldn"t have it, and I wouldn"t stay. But, matey, if you could show me how to get back... the money isn"t the loss I"m... if I was as poor as ould Chalse-a-killey, and had to work my flesh.... I"d stay if I could get back...."
The whistle sounded from the funnel of the "Snaefell," and the loud throbs of escaping steam echoed from the Head. Willie Quarrie ran in to say that the luggage was down at the ferry steps, and the ferryboat was coming over the harbor.
"Capt"n," said Lovibond, "she must have injured you badly----"
"Injured _me?_" said Davy. "Wish she had! I wouldn"t go off to the world"s end if that was all betwixt us."
"If she hasn"t, Capt"n," said Lovi-bond, "you"re putting her in the way of it."
"What?"
Davy was about to light his pipe, but he flung away the match.
"Have you never thought of it?" said Lovibond, "That when a husband deserts his wife like this he throws her in the way of--"
"Not Nelly, no," said Davy, promptly. "I"ll lave _that_ with her, anyway. Any other woman perhaps, but Nelly--never! She"s as pure as new milk, and no beast milk neither. Nelly going wrong, eh? Well, well! I"d like to see the man that would... I may have treated her bad... but I"d like to see the man, I say..."
Then there was another shrieking whistle from the steamer. Willie Quarrie called up at the window and gesticulated wildly from the lawn outside.
"Coming, boy, coming," Davy shouted back, and looking at his watch, he said, "Four minutes and a half--time enough yet."
Then they left the hotel and moved toward the ferry steps. As they walked Davy begun to laugh. "Well, well!" he said, and he laughed again.
"Aw, to think, to think!" he said, and he laughed once more. But with every fresh outbreak of his laughter the note of his voice lost freshness.
Lovibond saw his opportunity, and yet could not lay hold of it, so cruel at that moment seemed the only weapon that would be effectual. But Davy himself thrust in between him and his timid spirit. With another hollow laugh, as if half ashamed of keeping up the deception to the last, yet convinced that he alone could see through it, he said, "No news of the girl in the church, mate, eh? Gone home, I suppose?"
"Not yet," said Lovibond.
"No?" said Davy.
"The fact is--but you"ll be secret?"
"Coorse."
"It isn"t a thing I"d tell everybody--"
"What?"
"You see, if her husband has treated her like a brute, she"s his wife, after all."
Davy drew up on the path. "What is it?" he said.
"I"m to meet her to-night, alone," said Lovibond.
"No!"
"Yes; in the grounds of Castle Mona, by the waterfall, after dark--at eight o"clock, in fact.
"Castle Mona--by the waterfall--eight o"clock--that"s a--now, that must be a--"
Davy had lifted his pipe hand to give emphasis to the protest on his lips, when he stopped and laughed, and said, "Amazing thick, eh?"
"Why not," said Lovibond? "Who wouldn"t be with a sweet woman like that?
If the fool that"s left her doesn"t know her worth, so much the better for somebody else."
"Then you"re for making it up there?" said Davy, clearing his throat.
"It"ll not be my fault if I don"t," said Lovibond. "I"m not one of the wise a.s.ses that talk big about G.o.d"s law and man"s law; and if I were, man"s law has tied this sweet little woman to a brute, and G.o.d"s law draws her to me--that"s all."
"And she"s willing, eh?" said Davy.
"Give her time, Capt"n," said Lovibond.
"But didn"t you say she was loving this--this brute of a husband?" said Davy.
"Time, Capt"n, time," said Lovibond. "That will mend with time."
"And, manewhile, she"s tellin" you all her secrets."
"I leave you to judge, Capt"n."
"After dark, you say--that"s middling tidy to begin with, eh, mate--eh?"
Lovibond laughed: Capt"n Davy laughed. They laughed together.
Willie Quarrie, standing by the boat at the bottom of the steps, with the luggage piled up at the bow, shouted that there was not a minute to spare. The throbbing of the steam in the funnel had ceased, one of the two gangways had been run ash.o.r.e, and the captain was on the bridge.
"Now, then, Capt"n," cried Willie.
But Davy did not hear. He was watching Lovibond"s face with eyes of suspicion. Was the man fooling him? Did he know the secret?
"Good-by Capt"n," said Lovibond, taking Davy by the hand.