"The finest in the world! Only think! I loved and I was loved, untroubled, at peace, without remorse, without fear. All the world, all life were transformed for me. And how much I have seen! How good people were to me! Roderick was so much liked everywhere. Yes, I have known kindness and safety. The most familiar things appeared lighted up with a new light, clothed with a loveliness I had never suspected. The sea itself! ... You are a sailor. You have lived your life on it. But do you know how beautiful it is, how strong, how charming, how friendly, how mighty..."
I listened amazed and touched. She was silent only a little while.
"It was too good to last. But nothing can rob me of it now... Don"t think that I repine. I am not even sad now. Yes, I have been happy.
But I remember also the time when I was unhappy beyond endurance, beyond desperation. Yes. You remember that. And later on, too. There was a time on board the _Ferndale_ when the only moments of relief I knew were when I made Mr Powell talk to me a little on the p.o.o.p. You like him?-- Don"t you?"
"Excellent fellow," I said warmly. "You see him often?"
"Of course. I hardly know another soul in the world. I am alone. And he has plenty of time on his hands. His aunt died a few years ago.
He"s doing nothing, I believe."
"He is fond of the sea," I remarked. "He loves it."
"He seems to have given it up," she murmured.
"I wonder why?"
She remained silent. "Perhaps it is because he loves something else better," I went on. "Come, Mrs Anthony, don"t let me carry away from here the idea that you are a selfish person, hugging the memory of your past happiness, like a rich man his treasure, forgetting the poor at the gate."
I rose to go, for it was getting late. She got up in some agitation and went out with me into the fragrant darkness of the garden. She detained my hand for a moment and then in the very voice of the Flora of old days, with the exact intonation, showing the old mistrust, the old doubt of herself, the old scar of the blow received in childhood, pathetic and funny, she murmured, "Do you think it possible that he should care for me?"
"Just ask him yourself. You are brave."
"Oh, I am brave enough," she said with a sigh.
"Then do. For if you don"t you will be wronging that patient man cruelly."
I departed leaving her dumb. Next day, seeing Powell making preparations to go ash.o.r.e, I asked him to give my regards to Mrs Anthony. He promised he would.
"Listen, Powell," I said. "We got to know each other by chance?"
"Oh, quite!" he admitted, adjusting his hat.
"And the science of life consists in seizing every chance that presents itself," I pursued. "Do you believe that?"
"Gospel truth," he declared innocently.
"Well, don"t forget it."
"Oh, I! I don"t expect now anything to present itself," he said, jumping ash.o.r.e.
He didn"t turn up at high water. I set my sail and just as I had cast off from the bank, round the black barn, in the dusk, two figures appeared and stood silent, indistinct.
"Is that you, Powell?" I hailed.
"And Mrs Anthony," his voice came impressively through the silence of the great marsh. "I am not sailing to-night. I have to see Mrs Anthony home."
"Then I must even go alone," I cried.
Flora"s voice wished me "_bon voyage_" in a most friendly but tremulous tone.
"You shall hear from me before long," shouted Powell, suddenly, just as my boat had cleared the mouth of the creek.
"This was yesterday," added Marlow, lolling in the armchair lazily. "I haven"t heard yet; but I expect to hear any moment... What on earth are you grinning at in this sarcastic manner? I am not afraid of going to church with a friend. Hang it all, for all my belief in Chance I am not exactly a pagan..."